World Wildlife Fund turns to drones in bid to tackle poaching

World Wildlife Fund turns to drones in bid to tackle poaching

arstechnica.com

The World Wildlife Fund is turning to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a bid to tackle an upsurge in illegal poaching of rhinos, elephants, and tigers carried out by increasingly sophisticated and well-equipped cartels. The WWF provided two hand-launchable UAVs to the government of Nepal in 2012. In December, Google awarded the organization $5 million to develop more advanced UAV systems. The hope is that these systems will reduce the poaching of endangered mammals and save the lives of the park rangers assigned to protect them. Ars spoke to WWF's Crawford Allan to learn more the UAV system

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Drones being use for a good reason instead. I am fully up for this. Rhino poaching is at its highest.

A few drones patrolling the skies and keeping an eye on the wildlife can only be considered a benefit. These animals as much help as they can get.

As much as I like the idea. I would not like to see these drones being armed. They arm the wildlife guards as it is and I guess sometime in the future this might be seen as a logical step to take.



arstechnica.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Now I have to say, there are some very good applications for drone technology with their ability to lurk and patrol enormous areas without getting tired or needing a break. Militarily? It's a little too close to Sky-Net for me. They can keep their flying Terminators.

Here though? Hey now..... Two areas they make great sense? Anti-Crime where law enforcement is laughably unrealistic (like poaching African and Asian wildlife) and Search & Rescue. This looks like a case where the success of one may well feed into the other for everyone to come out a winner in the end.

Never thought I'd see the day where I believe drones would/are being used in a helpful demeanor.

Human technology actually being used to ASSIST our wildlife?

Hey, I'll take it.

Still though, drones so easily set the stage for a plethora of 'extenuating circumstances.'

reply to post by RomeByFire

I have to say that as strongly as I feel about sport killing and poaching endangered species for black market products, I'd have no problem seeing the African Game Wardens given fully armed drones too. First, what I know of the anti-poaching efforts, it's the ultimate thankless job. The guys who go into that work, truly love the work. They sure get nothing else for the efforts.....

Second though....Should the drone arrive a bit too late and find the poachers over a Rhino, Elephant or Gorilla? Well, one good turn deserves another sometimes. I think they can stand being poached themselves.

reply to post by purplemer


This is great to see..! Like above posters have said its nice to see drones being put to use for good..!
Thanks for the find.
s/f purp

This is perhaps the only legitimate use of drones that I have yet heard of. Good job on whoever thought this up!

I hope that this manages to do what all previous efforts have not managed to, that being end poaching of rare animals.

Now if they were only armed with some hellfire missiles....those poachers would NEVER again bother those poor rhinos

Originally posted by muse7
Now if they were only armed with some hellfire missiles....those poachers would NEVER again bother those poor rhinos

Already in some national parks they shoot and kill poachers. Do you think it correct to value an animal life above a human.

Originally posted by purplemer

Originally posted by muse7
Now if they were only armed with some hellfire missiles....those poachers would NEVER again bother those poor rhinos

Already in some national parks they shoot and kill poachers. Do you think it correct to value an animal life above a human.

I think it's the human, in that case, that made their own judgement call on the value of life. They found it as cheap as the ashtray the Gorilla paw is taken to make or the aphrodisiac the tiger is slain to create. I see no problem with responding in kind to those who would be human predators of the worst kind.

(I might note ... Drones could be real useful for people like the Sea Shepards in another hunt for hunters too...unarmed in that case, but finding the factory ship may be simpler, to be sure.)

Originally posted by purplemer

Originally posted by muse7
Now if they were only armed with some hellfire missiles....those poachers would NEVER again bother those poor rhinos

Already in some national parks they shoot and kill poachers. Do you think it correct to value an animal life above a human.

Depends on the human, I know I value my dog WAY ABOVE any human that isn't a close family member. If I had the choice of saving a complete stranger from a burning house or my dog, then I would choose my dog 10 times out of 10.

I just don't think it's right to allow an entire species to be driven to extinction just because some chinese guy thinks he's going to get a longer lasting erection if he eats a certain part of the animal.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

I think it's the human, in that case, that made their own judgement call on the value of life. They found it as cheap as the ashtray the Gorilla paw is taken to make or the aphrodisiac the tiger is slain to create. I see no problem with responding in kind to those who would be human predators of the worst kind.

Much of it is done by professional gangs. But they often higher local people. If you lived in the back end of Africa with a hungry family and someone told you if you popped one of those Rhinos you could earn a $1000 or so. Would you do it. All this would do is wage another war on people.

reply to post by purplemer

There is a point where anything can be justified by the rationale that everyone is at fault, so no one can really be held entirely to blame. That confusion of simple right and wrong has given us a world so chaotic and extreme to the negatives in various ways, it's almost beyond getting back. In this case, that's literal in saying the hunting of many of these animals IS a time limited issue for how many of them there are left to kill at this rate.

The guy with the rifle and the 4x4, running down game animals ..or trapping/hunting them in jungles across Asia is in no way less guilty because he peddles the proceeds of the hunts into the black markets.

Perhaps the $1,000 or whatever it is for a body part, wouldn't be worth it if the price for being caught could be a Hellfire citation by the Game Wardens. It might even scare the human predators enough to give the other ones a chance to breed a little and recover some. Just my hope. Man made global warming isn't something I buy ...but Man HAS absolutely destroyed the natural balance in wildlife, world wide.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


The poacher becomes the poached (is that a word?)

Oh it's the ultimate irony.

No, the ultimate irony is we let rapist and murders live out their lives in jails -

But we're okay with killing a poacher.

That's irony.

Peace,
Cirque

Originally posted by muse7
I just don't think it's right to allow an entire species to be driven to extinction just because some chinese guy thinks he's going to get a longer lasting erection if he eats a certain part of the animal.

Yes, that really chaps my hide. A rhino is horribly disfigured and left to die so some old Chinese guy can have an erection. It is not fair at all.

Go after the traders and sellers as well as the poachers. Make them all pay dearly.

Originally posted by purplemer

Originally posted by muse7
Now if they were only armed with some hellfire missiles....those poachers would NEVER again bother those poor rhinos

Already in some national parks they shoot and kill poachers. Do you think it correct to value an animal life above a human.

I do not value animals above humans. But I do value the poachee above the poacher.

Thanks for the post nice to see them being used in a good way. Not to change the topic but I do laugh at the drone paranoia on here..

Replace poacher with criminal ... And replace Africa with America ... What the big deal ?

They are using drones to capture poachers in South Africa as well and there is talks of more of these drones that will be used in our National Parks.