While some people seem to believe that drones will mean the end of the world, others are trying to save the world with drones. The Lindbergh Foundation is trying to raise $500,000 through crowdfunding to finance its Air Shepherd program to stop (not reduce or minimize) the poaching of elephants and rhinos in Africa. “When the airplanes fly, the poaching stops,” said John Petersen, chairman of the Lindbergh Foundation. The system marries little electric unmanned aerial systems with the giant computing power available at the University of Maryland to tell wildlife rangers on the ground where to find poachers before they can start shooting. It’s been extraordinarily effective in two years of trials on private game reserves and now it’s ready for the vast reaches of public wilderness in seven African countries that have approved its use.
The aircraft are relatively straightforward UAS platforms that are in common use. They carry optical and infrared cameras and are able to stream images showing the animals and the poachers to a control center in real time. The staff in the center then dispatch the law enforcement rangers to the area where the poachers have been spotted. What makes the system so effective, however, is the computer technology that predicts where the animals and poachers will be (with 93 percent accuracy) and allows the rangers to be predeployed so they can reach the poachers before the carnage begins. “Quietly developed and tested for two years with an investment of $2 million, this capability has proven to be extraordinarily effective in over 1000 hours of flying,” says an Air Shepherd news release. “No elephants or rhinos were lost anywhere and anytime they flew.”
