Air surveillance to check poaching, boost studies
The recent memorandum of understanding signed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India to use unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, to monitor tiger reserves, is a great example of how new technologies can be incorporated into wildlife conservation efforts. The proposal builds on a successful pilot project conducted in 2013 in Madhya Pradesh's Panna Tiger Reserve and will now be extended to four other sites Kaziranga (Assam), Sundarbans (West Bengal), Corbett Reserve (Uttarakhand) and Sathyamangalam (Tamil Nadu). Across the world, drones are now being used extensively for conservation and research purposes. By putting ‘eyes', ‘ears' and in some cases even little computers that can count and compute data, drones are taking human endeavours in the study of wildlife to new heights. The US Geological Survey is using drones to count migrating Sandhill Cranes, while the United Kingdom's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is using them to monitor the otherwise inaccessible nests of rare birds such as the Marsh Harrier and the Bittern and keep track of the vulnerable cranes and corncrakes that have been re-introduced in the UK, from where they had disappeared. Drones have also brought us rare footage from orangutan nests in the dense jungles of Sumatra and Borneo and from the frozen habitats of endangered marine mammals in the Arctic. They are even protecting beach-goers in Australia from shark attacks. Notably, while drones are boosting the research of wildlife scientists, they are also reducing the often life-threatening field risks taken by the latter. Between 1937 and 2000, some 91 biologists died on the field, and the number has increased with time. In 2008, one scientist died while tracking a radio-collared black bear in Florida while another was killed in 2013 trailing a caribou in Alberta.
Drones are also revolutionising anti-poaching efforts. In 2012, the World Wildlife Fund received five million dollars from Google to purchase conservation drones that are now flown over parts of Africa to keep an eye out for hunters. In 2014, South African National Parks, with a large donation from Howard G Buffett Foundation, started testing drone technology to combat poaching at the Kruger National Park, while Kenya has partnered with drone manufacturer AirWare to complement the efforts of sniffer dogs and park rangers. In fact, such private-public collaborations are becoming common the trial-run at Panna, for example, was India’s collaborative venture with US-based Conservation Drones.
The benefits of drones notwithstanding, there are two areas of concern: First is the legal framework, which is yet to catch up with technology. As a result, drone-users face a lot of bureaucratic red-tape. Second is the impact of drones on the subjects, with some reports suggesting that the UAVs cause distress to bears, for example or scare away birds or scatter the herds.