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Drones will fight poachers
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Poachers annually destroy a huge number of animals for their own profit; in South and Central Africa alone, approximately 40,000 elephants die for their valuable ivory. In addition, poachers pose a great danger to rhinoceroses, whose horns are made of the same material as a human fingernail, but despite this, illegal hunting of these animals may soon make this species extinct.
Lindbergh Foundation CEO John Petersen noted that rhinos and elephants could disappear from our planet in less than 10 years if no measures are taken to combat poaching.
The foundation's main goal is to protect nature and animals using various technologies. In the past, the foundation has provided assistance to the Kenyan Environmental Protection Service in the form of special aircraft that help monitor the movements of poachers.
But it is worth noting that planes have several disadvantages - they can be shot down, and visibility is significantly reduced at night, which is when illegal hunting of animals usually occurs. With this in mind, the foundation's specialists have focused their attention on drones - unmanned aerial vehicles that track the activities of illegal hunters at night using infrared radiation. The new drones are called Air Shepherd and are only part of the entire system, and not just used for surveillance.
Air Shepherd is equipped with a special analysis system developed by specialists from the University of Maryland. The focused analysis system allows conservationists to act one step ahead - thanks to this feature in the drones, it will be possible to find out where poachers are heading and take measures to prevent the crime.
The University of Maryland originally developed a predictive algorithm for the Defense Department. The predictive drones were supposed to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan to predict the locations of improvised explosive devices that kill large numbers of American soldiers, but the team adapted the system to track lawbreakers.
The principle of the analysis system is based on the creation of a database for each area where certain animals live, selecting the most vulnerable to poachers. The system also takes into account the weather forecast, the presence of infrastructure, the terrain, illegal actions of hunters in the past, which together allows predicting the actions of poachers.
The system processes the data and creates a route for the drone.
According to the Petersen Foundation, such a drone surveillance system will help animal protection workers who are unable to be in several places at once.
The first group will soon begin working with drones in one of the republics of South Africa, and by the beginning of autumn, specialists plan to begin work in another South African republic.
According to John Petersen, Air Shepherd is a system of the future, offering hope of saving the lives of a huge number of elephants and rhinos. In the places where the new drone surveillance system was tested, illegal hunting cases stopped completely, which had not been possible to achieve before.