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Tech

What Droning African Wildlife Conservation Looks Like

Now with even more rhinos and elephants.
Rhinos watering at night. Via

By now we've heard quite a bit about both the tragic plight of rare African beasts at the hands of shithead poachers, and efforts to mitigate that slaughter using small-fry drones. It's early yet, and with only a limited number of UAVs deployed throughout the continent--and thus only scant data and anecdotal evidence to suggest that drones may help save, say, northern white rhinos--it's difficult to gauge just how useful the technology is when it comes to wildlife conservation.

This video doesn't offer much definitive evidence one way or the other. But it does give us a glimpse at how getting some altitude can give conservationists a leg up on poachers, who often set out to kill when reserves are most active and predatory: at night. Showing select feeds gathered by a small research team that field tested the Falcon, a fixed-wing glider packing heat-seeking sensors, we see rhinos watering, and elephants both feeding and on the move, all from the relatively serenity of still night air.

It's a matter of coverage. So if anything, this video suggests just how useful a small swarm of drones could/will be as efforts to thwart rampant poaching ramp up. By the same token, it shows how easy it'll soon be for hunters to acquire (if they haven't already) the very same tools.

Reach Brian at brian@motherboard.tv. @thebanderson // @VICEdrone