WWF plans to use drones to protect wildlife

WWF plans to use drones to protect wildlife

The green group says by the end of the year it will have deployed 'eyes in the sky' in one country in Africa or Asia

Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 February 2013 02.00 EST

Conservation group WWF plans to deploy surveillance drones to aid its efforts to protect species in the wild.

The green group says that by the end of the year, it will have deployed "eyes in the sky" in one country in Africa or Asia, with a second country following in 2014 as part of a $5m hi-tech push to combat the illegal wildlife trade.

A record 668 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa alone last year, and a single shipment of ivory seized in Malaysia in December weighed almost as much as all the illegally traded ivory since in 2011, which was itself a record year for seizures. The criminal trade has become so serious that last year the US intelligence community were ordered to track poachers by then secretary of state Hillary Clinton, with a WWF report in December warning the multibillion dollar trade was now threatening national security in some countries.

WF's three-year project also involves combining data from unmanned aerial vehicles, cheap mobile phone technology tracking animal movements, and handheld devices carried by rangers, in a bid to outsmart often heavily armed poachers who bribe corrupt officials to avoid patrols and find wildlife.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/07/wwf-wildlife-drones-illegal-trade