By the time most poachers are caught and arrested, at least one rhino is already dead. But now, a new multipronged, high-tech system is helping rangers get ahead of poachers and prevent rhinos ever getting hurt. It is an integrated system called Connected Conservation and uses a combination of technologies, including WiFi, thermal cameras, scanners, closed-circuit televisions, and sensors, to provide early warnings about suspicious activity, reports National Geographic. Rangers will know as soon as the perimeter of a protected area is breached and hopefully intercept intruders faster and with less risk to life and limb.
Two international technology companies, Dimension Data, headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Cisco, based in San Jose, California, collaborated to create Connected Conservation. It is very similar to a burglar system that covers a large area. However, Connected Conservation had to be made to withstand harsh conditions such as lightning strikes, heavy rains, and baking temperatures.
The system has been set up in a 135,000-acre private game reserve adjacent to South Africa’s Kruger National Park, where from 2013 through 2015—the three years before the system was installed—roughly 70 rhinos were killed for their horns, according to Nat Geo. But in 2017, no rhinos were poached, and none have been killed so far this year.
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