Giving Compass' Take:
- · To take a stand against poaching, the Sigfox Foundation is using GPS trackers in rhinos to protect the species and fight for their safety and recovery.
- · What role can you play in supporting anti-poaching technology and efforts?
- · Learn about an all-women’s anti-poaching organization based out of Zimbabwe.
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In a sprawling wildlife preserve in Zimbabwe larger than Grand Canyon National Park, some of the rhinos roaming the park have sensors embedded in their horns. Three times a day, the trackers send the animals’ GPS locations to solar-powered base stations, which then send the data to rangers through a mobile app.
“Each day, they look at what we call the Google map of rhinos,” says Marion Moreau, head of the Sigfox Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Sigfox, a France-based tech company that builds low-power networks for the internet of things, which designed the sensors as part of a project called Now Rhinos Speak.
Poaching is a major problem for rhinos. In 2018, in South Africa alone, 769 rhinos were killed, or an average of two a day. At the beginning of the 20th century, the global population of the animal was around 500,000; now there are around 28,000. Three species are critically endangered. The last male northern white rhino, a subspecies of the white rhino, died in 2018. Two females are left in Kenya and protected with 24-hour guards.
Read the full article about saving rhinos with GPS trackers by Adele Peters at Fast Company.