'Drones' poaching - World

drones attacks are often associated with war, but in fact these drones, led remote control systems allow a large number of applications in the civil sector. Recently, the State Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approved in Spain the first civilian drone to fire control. Now a team of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) intends to use these vehicles to control poaching of rhinos in Africa, through surveillance and deterrence, in order to strengthen the protection of threatened species.

areas over which have already started to work (13 in total), corresponding to 100,000 acres of private property that is located in the province of KwaZulu (South Africa). So far, they have already carried out 20 test flights that have served to identify best conditions that can be detected from the sky a poacher .

Until now, researchers have found that CSIC rhinos are easier to detect on flat in leafy places. They have also stated that the minimum altitude to achieve this goal is 31 meters and the maximum of 240. To make the first test flights, extras who pretended to be poachers, were used and thus found that its presence could be detected up to a height of 158 meters.

“We used to people making furtive to study the detectability, reliability and quality data obtained under different conditions,” explained Margarita WORLD Mulero-Pázmány, one of the scientists who participated in the study.

Preliminary research with test flights took place in August last year with a video camera in HD, other still photo and a third thermal equipment to capture images at night that were installed on the drone . The studies conducted so far indicate that hunters show no preference for a particular period in time to go hunting, but only act at night, especially when the moon is full, and you might find more ease of animals. The most common method for catching them is by direct hits or by entering anesthesia in fruits they eat. Sometimes a trap is also used with small wires.

Two rhinos captured by the camera of a ‘drone’. CSIC

rhinos situation remains dramatic. Throughout the 90s, two species, black rhino and white, were about to disappear. Although in 2007 began to increase the number of copies in the first two months of 2013 high number of deaths from poaching reached more than two individuals per day murdered in South Africa as the study of the CSIC. Mulero-Pázmány The doctor believes that these figures are “a serious ecological problem,” since almost 1,000 copies in total died in 2013.

Spanish authors of this project believe that the use of drones is a viable alternative to other more expensive monitoring systems to prevent the death of these animals classified as a threatened species in the case of rhinos white and the critically endangered black , as has alerted the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

rhino horn is a very popular product in Asia, especially in China, Hong Kong and South Korea, as in the traditional medicine of these countries has healing properties for various ailments.

why the rhino poaching is driven by the high price that reaches its horn on the black market in Asia. In 2012, hunters get reached an average of 17,330 euros from the sale of a white rhinoceros horn , but the highest figure reached reach 53,784 euros. In the case of the black rhino, the price of its horn has come to reach 44,969 euros.

All three cameras

drone anti-poaching provided much valuable information during test flights. First, the picture camera was used during the day and provided 500 images that allowed locating the black and white rhino, the extras pretending to be stealthy surveillance and fences separating land of another. The thermal camera was used during the night and early morning to spot the animals in the dark. Finally, the high definition video was added to the front of the plane and provided a view of the ground at an angle of 30 ° below the horizon. The total equipment cost was 13,750 euros.