"Please don't post any of your rhino pictures on social media!"
This comment, given by a fellow tourist and echoed by one of the
trackers from Save the Rhino Trust after spending an exhilarating
morning tracking a black rhino in Damaraland, Namibia, reminded me
how technology can be a force for both good and evil. Nowhere is
this more evident in the fight against rhino poaching in Africa,
where it is clear that technology is a double-edged sword for
wildlife.
Presently, rhinos of all types are some of the most endangered
animals in Africa. Since 2007, rhino poaching has increased 9,000
per cent. Rhinos are being slaughtered mercilessly due to the
demand for their horns in Vietnam and China.
Despite the lack of any scientific data, pulverized rhino horn is
believed to cure strokes, convulsions, and fevers, among other
ailments. A single rhino horn can fetch more than $250,0000 on the
black market.
With these kind of financial incentives, poachers scour social
media looking for leads on where to find endangered species. Images
posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can betray details of an
animal's location. As Mike Hower noted in his article on the
dark side of digital technology, seemingly innocuous social media
apps such as Instagram have become useful tools for tech-savvy
poachers.
Apparently, in South Africa, poachers have gone so far as to send
in young couples with GPS-enabled smartphones to photograph
endangered rhinos. The exact GPS co-ordinates are attached to the
picture, which allows poachers to come in after dark and track the
animal. Clueless tourists thus become unwitting accomplices to
poaching.
Conservationists have posted signs in wildlife reserves reminding
people to turn off the geotag function and not disclose where the
photo was taken. Plugging the longitude and latitude into Google
Maps, for example, allows one to discover the exact spot where the
photo was shot, give or take a few metres.
Amazingly, poachers can even identify markers in the background of
photos, such as a particular grove of trees or a mountain peak. As
some rhinos are sedentary and can remain in a general area for days
at a stretch, the risk increases exponentially.
Would-be poachers or informants can then send a photo with a
location tag to anyone or return to the spot later to seek out the
rhino. Poachers use helicopters so they can cover large distances
in a short period of time to hunt down the animal quickly.
Paranoia? In South Africa's Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, two men
killed a pair of white rhinos and were later arrested. In India,
poachers killed a pair of one-horned rhinos in Kaziranga National
Park.
In reaction, officials in South Africa have become more vigilant
about rhino tourism, documenting the names and visits of tourists.
Cellphones are forbidden on some safari vehicles. Desert Rhino
Camp, where I stayed, did not have any Wi-Fi access, for which I
was glad if it meant helping to preserve, even a little, the safety
of the rhinos.
Social media is being used in other twisted ways. In March,
Traffic, a strategic alliance of the World Wildlife Fund and the
International Union for Conservation of Nature, issued a report
that confirmed social media sites are increasingly being used in
Asia as platforms for the illegal trade in a range of threatened
species such as orangutan and sun bears.
"Traders are clearly moving to non-conventional methods of
sale such as utilizing online portals and social media in order to
evade detection, reach a broader audience, and increase transaction
efficiency and convenience," Traffic said in a report released
to coincide with World Wildlife Day.
Growing numbers of traders are using closed groups on Facebook and
password-protected online forums to reach Asian customers. Traffic
said in one month in China last year, thousands of ivory products,
77 whole rhino horns, and large numbers of endangered birds were
found advertised for sale on sites such as QQ and WeChat, which are
popular in China, using code words for the various products.
On the positive side, social media is also being used to fight
poachers. In cases that range from China and Africa to the United
States, poachers who have bragged on social media have found
themselves nabbed for their crimes by a combination of amateur
sleuths and law enforcement worldwide.
Additionally, various new technologies are being tested and used to
combat wildlife crime. Drones, satellite imagery, predictive
analysis, DNA analysis, hidden cameras, GPS location devices, and
apps are all being implemented to try and predict, locate, track,
and catch suspected poachers.
Drones in particular have really taken off (pun intended) in
attracting funding for conservation efforts. In 2012, Google gave
US$5 million to the World Wildlife Fund to purchase conservation
drones to fly over parts of Africa and Asia in an attempt to help
monitor and catch wildlife poachers. In March 2014, the Howard G.
Buffett Foundation announced a 255-million rand (Cdn$22 million)
donation for a three-year initiative in partnership with Nature
Conservation Trust, South African National Parks, and a South
African public benefit organization to combat poaching in Kruger
National Park and test new anti-poaching technology.
In March, the Lindbergh Foundation announced the launch of the Air
Shepherd program in South Africa, using military-style computer
analytics to identify poaching hot spots, and then send silent
drones equipped with night vision to track down poachers. In
partnership with the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced
Computer Studies, they use algorithms to predict when and where the
poaching will take place. Rangers are then pre-deployed to
intercept poachers before the rhino is killed.
Can drones be used successfully to help combat rhino poaching? As
noted by Save the Rhino in its excellent article on Rhinos and Drones, drones definitely have
limitations as rhino-protection tools in the long term.
The technological limitations are myriad — they have a
limited battery life, range must be within line-of-sight of the
operator, and any malfunction can lead to an expensive crash. The
payload (thermal-imaging equipment, etc.) can make them heavy, and
gusty winds, hilly terrain, or other unfavourable conditions can
make them difficult to operate.
Most importantly perhaps, unmanned drones still require skilled
operators. If the operator has not received sufficient training,
the capabilities will not be fully utilized. Worse, drone operators
have allegedly been bribed to give out sensitive rhino location
details to poachers.
Taking a different approach from using drones, Cisco and Dimension
Data teamed up this year to deploy a number of different
crime-fighting technologies in an unnamed South African reserve.
Their initiative focuses on monitoring and tracking individuals as
they enter the gates of the reserve and until they leave.
Dimension Data worked with Cisco to collect various bits of
information about the game rangers, security personnel, tech, and
control centre teams. They then created a secure Reserve Area
Network and installed Wi-Fi hotspots at key points around the
reserve. The second phase involves CCTV, drones sporting infrared
cameras, thermal imaging, vehicle-tracking IoT sensors and seismic
IoT sensors on a secure intelligent network.
All of this technology is operated on the site as a managed service
and utilizes the cloud for data analytics and backup. Suspicious
activities/crimes are supposed to be recorded and stopped as they
happen. Depending on the results, the technology will be expanded
to other reserves in Africa.
Many believe a low-tech solution still works better. In fact,
tracker dogs, working alongside their human handlers, are
responsible for more than 70 per cent of arrests of suspected
poachers in Kruger. "Killer," a Belgian Malinois dog, has
led to 115 arrests over the past four years.
While drones are still being used, the goals now are more modest.
"They're not the game-changer they have been portrayed to
be," says Julian Rademeyer, author of Killing for Profit, a
book about the illegal rhino-horn trade.
In Namibia, SRT is currently focusing on increasing its field
patrolling and monitoring (using a combination of vehicles and
increased air and foot patrols), and working closely with their
partners and with local communities to engage them in helping to
save the rhino.
Since locals know where the rhinos are, more or less, and know how
to find them, poachers will often send a middleman to bribe a local
to go shoot the rhinos and hack off the horn for them. SRT
critically seeks to engage black-rhino host communities to improve
understanding of the long-term value to them of the rhinos, making
them partners in rhino conservation.
This includes obtaining more local rhino rangers and liaising and
engaging with schools and communities in town and in areas
surrounding the rhino range. It's a decidedly more low-tech
approach that may be more useful than drones in protecting the
rhino in the future.
However, the only way to really protect these magnificent animals
will be to persuade would-be buyers in Asia to stop using their
horns, which, unfortunately so far, technology — and social
media — has not yet been able to successfully do.
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