For my group Analytical Hypertext we are focusing on tracking/surveillance… So, when I came across this article, I was interested because it definitely applies to what we are working on.
Rebecca Boyle, author of this article Google Funds Secret Techonology For Hunting Down Poachers is a freelance journalist from Saint Louis, Missouri. Recently Rebeccas has been covering NASA research, biology and engineering for Popular Science (an online new source).
Poaching has been an issue for centuries, but recently it has become quite worse. The poaching industry is worth around $7-10 billion annually. BBC reported that the killing of Rhinos in South Africa have increased from 13 to 588 in the past five years.
Because of this, Google gave the World Wildlife Fund $5 million for a new grant program. This program, the Global Impact Awards, plans to use technology as an “aerial surveillance and radio-frequency ID tags on wild animals”.
Using tracking devices in order to curb poaching has been used before, but the World Wildlife Fund wanted to increase the umbrella of monitoring technology.
“This is an industry that is creating crisis. It is emptying the world’s forests and oceans” the WWF said.
Stop Poaching. Source: African Wildlife Foundation
I feel that this is a type of tracking and surveillance that will benefit the world. People might argue that the WWF is ruining the natural environment that the Rhinos and the Elephants are living in, but I would disagree. The WWF focuses their time and energy to keeping these animals safe. The last thing that anyone would ever want is to see these animals extinct, except the poachers themselves.
By adding these tracking and surveillance devices, it would be able to detect poachers and dispatch mobile ranger patrols to catch them. They would also place sensors on animals and in their environments that could be detected by a network.
I enjoy reading articles like this. I also enjoy seeing Google put their money in a good place. This subject will be worth taking a look at in a year or so and see how the numbers compare to now.