Google Pays for Drones To Bust African Rhino Poachers | Hacker News Reader

Google Pays for Drones To Bust African Rhino Poachers

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199 pointswslh83 comments

This is welcome from Google, as focused aid of this sort can often have an outsize effect, but we must be careful to avoid believing this can solve the problem.

For one, sophisticated UAVs that are much more capable than those the WWF is getting are already being used to combat rhino poaching. SANParks, the state agency responsible for South Africa's state-run national parks, has deployed the Seeker II military-spec UAV[0], ground radar, thermal imagers, cameras and dedicated teams of heavily armed rangers in the Kruger National Park, one of Africa's largest wildlife reserves. All anti-poaching resources have been placed under the command of Major General Johan Jooste, a highly-regarded retired military commander and a rewards program giving approximately US$ 10 000 to anybody whose tip-off results in the arrest of a poacher and about US$ 100 000 for a tip-off leading to the arrest of the head of a poaching syndicate has been created. At the same time the South African Army has deployed units in both the border patrol and anti-poaching role in certain parks.

These measures are all helping, but it's important to understand just what an impossible task this is. SANParks's 19 national parks alone cover 37 000 km², that's larger than Belgium, Israel, Lebanon and most US states. Moreover those 19 parks are dispersed across South Africa's 1.2 million km² and many of them are on the border of neighbouring countries from which many of these poachers come. It also doesn't include the hundreds of private wildlife reserves across the country which have been badly hit by rhino poaching. As the US has discovered on its southern border with Mexico, trying to prevent small bands of people from crossing a border this large is impossible even with UAVs, manned aircraft and massive resources.

So technology alone is not going to solve this, though it and other measures are hopefully going to help reduce the rate at which rhinos are being killed. The only long-term solution is to somehow stop the demand for rhino horn from Asia and thus remove the profit motive for poaching rhinos in the first place.

[0] The Seeker II is a 9-12 hour endurance UAV with all the standard surveillance gear such as FLIR cameras that is being provided free of charge by Denel, a South African arms manufacturer. The intention is to supplement that with a longer-ranged model, the Seeker 400, sometime next year. At the same time they're finalising development of a much smaller UAV, the Hungwe, that can be deployed by ranger teams for short-range surveillance.

>demand for rhino horn from Asia

I think that is better classified as "traditional Chinese medicine".

The other (more scientific?) traditional medicine in Asia - Ayurveda - has no usage of elements like rhino horn, tiger blood, etc.

Or just generalized to "reduce demand for rhino horn".

Minor detail: " . . . 37 000 km², that's larger than Belgium, Israel, Lebanon and most US states." Its smaller than all but nine US states. To put it in perspective, its smaller than West Virginia, larger than Maryland.

Thanks for that, got my comparison wrong. My apologies.

Maybe they could follow the rhinos with UAVs to cut down on patrol-space? (or spend the money flooding the market with fake-rhino-horn?)

Too many rhinos dispersed across too far a distance. Unlike elephants rhinos don't necessarily herd in large groups. Many of the rhinos killed were either alone or in a small group of 2-4.

I'm not sure flooding the market with fake rhino horn is feasible as the underworld will develop its own authentication methods, but one suggestion that has been discussed is to flood the market with rhino horns from the huge stockpiles collected from rhinos who've died from natural causes in the hope that it'll lower the price and reduce the incentive to poach.

> Too many rhinos dispersed across too far a distance. Unlike elephants rhinos don't necessarily herd in large groups. Many of the rhinos killed were either alone or in a small group of 2-4.

My google searching suggests there are 5k-10k black rhinos in the world. Seems plausible to monitor each one with a dedicated UAV, once you take into account economies of scale.

While it's an interesting idea, it's not just possible with today's tech.

Black rhinos are only one subspecies, white rhinos are just as threatened by poaching and there are around 20 000 of those, so you're looking at around 25 000 rhinos in Africa.

You'd need at least three UAVs per rhino, one on station at any given time, one ready to replace it once its endurance runs out and one spare in case something happens to one of the other two. Then there's the problem of actually tracking the rhino 24x7, through night and bad weather, while ensuring that the base station and recovery team stays close.

You'd also need skilled pilots / operators to keep the UAV on station and interpret what's on the screen and, once again, you'd need more than one per rhino to enable 24x7 shifts.

Once you factor in the number of UAVs, the dispersed recovery and handling teams and the need for skilled operators, you could potentially be speaking of 75 000 UAVs and a similar number of teams and pilots / operators. Even if we assume that UAVs with sufficient endurance for this task could be reduced to $500 000 each, that still results in a capital cost of nearly $40 billion, over and above the sure-to-be-mammoth operating costs. So it's not feasible.

A better approach is to fit each rhino with a GPS tracker, which is being done, and to use ranger patrols augmented by technology like UAVs and ground radar to attempt to spot poachers moving in the parks. That's why this is where SANParks and others are focusing their attention and resources.

My claim is that the cost would be much less than $500k/UAV in bulk. And you'd fit the rhinos with GPS trackers so no need for any human operators whatsoever.

I really like the idea of throwing some research dollars at developing imitation rhino horn. The kinds of people who are willing to traffic in endangered species wouldn't blush at passing along counterfeit product, as long as it was hard for the buyer to detect. Is anybody working on this? If not, it might make for a good kickstarter project :P

The USAF's and CIA's use of drones in the Middle East has sparked the imagination across all kinds of projects such as this one. But the reality is that military-style drones that can stay aloft for days are extremely expensive to purchase and to operate. The well-known Predator drone, for example, costs $4 million per airplane, and it requires a classified global satellite network, an uplink station manned with three operators, and a deployment crew with a forward operating station. It is only cheap when compared to the absurdly high cost of manned fighter jets and spy planes.

Comparing them to what is available for civilian use is a joke. Normally what you see are shaky line-of-sight quad-copters that can stay up for 20 minutes.

The government isn't exactly known for procuring things at an economical price or designing for efficiency. I mean just look at the cost difference between a space shuttle launch vs SpaceX.

Well yeah, NASA is a research agency and SpaceX is a company trying to commercialize space technology. That's like saying the Human Genome Project cost billions of dollars but you can get your genome sequenced for $99 from 23andMe, so obviously the Human Genome Project was a waste of money.

You have no clue what you are talking about.

Human Genome project is an example of complete DNA sequencing while 23andMe only tests for specific variations at specific loci. 23andMe and similar companies use commercially available solutions like DNA microarrays [1] with probes preprogrammed [2] for specific target variations and they cannot "read" arbitrary DNAs.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_microarray

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridization_probe

NASA sent men to the moon, robots to Mars, and space stations into orbit. SpaceX sends unmanned rockets to low earth orbit. So there you go.

For what it's worth, whole genome sequencing is also commercially available for much less than the Human Genome Project cost.

SpaceX's 2010 technology sure kicks NASA's 1975 technology's butt. Look, I love Elon Musk and SpaceX as much as the next guy but probably most of the cost advantage has to do with improved technology (especially materials science).

According to Elon Musk the biggest single difference is the economic incentives of fixed priced bids (SpaceX) versus cost+ bids (traditional aerospace).

With traditional NASA bidding procedures there are very few to no incentives to contains costs. Military procurement has the same issue, combined with stringent requirements that preclude off the shelf for virtually anything. (Off the shelf is not, of course, an option for SpaceX. But if it was, they would likely consider it!)

NASA's definitely hampered both by organizational and political issues that SpaceX isn't, but as other posters have pointed out NASA has also managed to do some amazing things on a comparative shoestring budget in recent years and -- unlike SpaceX -- these are things no-one has ever done before with relatively few failures.

But then one has to wonder why NASA's technology has not improved during the 37 years that came after 1975 despite a budget of over 10 billion dollars a year.

I guess its really trivial to point this out which is why it isn't being said, but they did send rovers to the Mars, and they kept the ISS manned with the shuttle program, all the while under orders to move away from manned missions.

This isn't a comprehensive list by any means.

~~Also - the cold war ended, the symbols are now eroding.~~

NASA does not get 10 billion a year just to explore the moon. They had and have other priorities. Why would they develop a new-and-improved shuttle when space exploration was basically canceled?

Because NASA has no incentive to become more efficient. When you are a national organization the incentive is to keep your budget as high as possible and spend as much as you can to prove that you need the money, every year. That is precisely why such businesses are ripe for disruption, because they were never built for achieving a lot while spending less. If we ever see Space Tourism develop, it will not be through NASA operations, that is for sure.

NASA's mission is not to efficiently commercialize space technology. That's the sort of thing best left to the private sector.

That doesn't explain why other companies still have much more expensive rockets, though. As far as I know, SpaceX has the cheapest ones by far.

The other companies are in general legacy NASA contractors or partnerships of the same. They are probably stuck in there ways they are essentially offering the same technology that NASA paid them to develop all these years.

Much of the cost of a Predator is because it's a weapon. That's not to say there is an abundance of excellent drones for civilian purchase, but I don't think they would need to be terribly expensive.

There is a huge abundance of civilian drone tech available in the hobby world. Don't forget that the whole feasability of drones in the first place was demonstrated in the hobby crowd. Many military drones do in fact derive their designs from RC/hobby realms ..

My point is that any drone that can stay up in the air for long periods of time and is controlled via a real-time satellite network is going to be expensive. And that type of drone is just not available commercially.

Those two requirements are because the Predator is a weapon. It can't land or be controlled from existing networks because it's in enemy territory.

Its quite possible to build a drone using off the shelf parts that can stay up for a few hours, at least. The rcgroups.com forums are full of such things, and whats interesting is that the pace of drone technology is really represented in such forums as rcgroups.com .. I myself have the parts available to build a flying spy platform that I could field over my lake and surrounding orchard for probably a few hours. Its not that far-fetched, and frankly with all the extraordinary designs for micro foam builds available on the Internet, I'd be surprised if African nations don't suddenly find themselves inundated with drone tech from the slums. They've got all the old CD-ROM drives they need to boot up a small fleet, anyway ..

The limitations of the stuff available to civilians have more to do with airspace regulations: commercial use of UAVs is simply not allowed[1]. Regulators are trying to figure out a better policy[2][3].

[1] http://mi6films.com/2011/rc-helicopter-mikrokopter-hexa-heli...

[2] https://www.aiaa.org/CAuav/

[3] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328506.200-civilian-...

>line-of-sight quad-copters that can stay up for 20 minutes

10 minutes is the median, but they don't have to be line of sight, except as bound by regulation such as in the UK [0]. Still short-range though, and certainly not suitable for this use-case.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Person_View

Maybe to protect rhinos, a bunch of balloons would do? Or satellites if they get ever more cheap?

Well, that's one off the list: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/news/...

Listed in the category "2012—2022" " Drones will protect endangered species. "

Not really a prediction, is it? That article is dated December 10th. This one is dated December 7th.

And the WWF's release[1] is dated December 4th.

[1] http://worldwildlife.org/stories/google-helps-wwf-stop-wildl...

I can't help feel there are tangential aims for a project like this. Surely part of the reasoning for making an investment in a project like this, is the advancement of the technology involved?

Bearing in mind the premier use for similarly advanced unmanned aircraft, is it too cynical to believe the project might end up advancing military aims?

$5million is a tiny amount of money and is unlikely to advance the state of the art in military drone technology.

Other people in the thread have mentioned the stuff involved in the predator drones.

Google may get some nice aerial photography for Maps; or they may get some limited research for unmanned vehicles.

> I can't help feel there are tangential aims for a project like this.

Even if there are, well, it's not a bad thing.

Public relations. It's obviously an investment in PR to generate public goodwill towards Google and at $5m, much cheaper than a TV advertising campaign.

Alternate title: Google Invests $5M in Spy Drones

I watched a doco a while back about a bloke named Damien Mander, who was ex-SAS and served in Afghanistan/Iraq, and was now living in South Africa training wardens to protect the elephants and rhinos. He said that the one tool he wished he had access to was predator UAVs like the ones they had in Afghanistan, because the amount of ground it could cover in one flight was huge compared to troops on-foot (or even in ground based vehicles). He had hooked up with a Melbourne based aviation engineer to design a UAV themselves, with thermo imaging equipment etc. The problem for me was that it was essentially a radio controlled plane, complete with the buzzing sound of the little nitro engine. Seemed like an easy target for a poacher to just shoot it out of the sky.

I really hope Google are putting a predator style UAV in this guys hands.

Found his site, and this link is interesting

http://www.iapf.org/en/2012-08-10-10-37-18/rhinouav

Hitting a small moving UAV (30+ km/hr) at any reasonable altitude (500 - 1,000 ft) would be a very challenging shot. Doing it at night...

The issue with louder low flying drones is not the risk of being shot down the problem is alerting the target. But in a anti-poacher situation this may be less of an issue than in a armed conflict.

In a way, the most effective use of this money would be to alert the target well in advance, in fact, before they even go hunting is best. Spend the bulk of the money on advertising the use of these drones, produce a couple of "hits" for the technology (even if the hits are, shall we say, lightly staged), and you will probably get better results that simply pouring all the money into actual drones.

You can't skip that step or the deception will be found out, but you sure could magnify your investment.

But if a poacher shoots it down, then they have just alerted the wardens to their presence.

There's also a campaign on indiegogo to help a Kenyan conservancy adopt drone technology: http://www.indiegogo.com/olpejeta

Support levels include drone flight time, trips to the conservancy, and naming an animal you can track with the drones' RFID technology.

This is a cool initiative, but when happens after the poachers are "exposed"?

They may be hunted down and shot.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10992502

It would probably violate multiple international treaties, but I know I'd be willing to pay $50 or so per shot, if the drone had an onboard weapon that could be aimed over IP. That would do some good in the world, and would be pretty exciting as well.

For safety, targeting could be supervised, and approval to fire issued or withheld, by the company selling the camera time. It's something that should probably be licensed by the host country, for the sake of legitimacy.

That's easy to say for someone living in a rich country. Before you advocate the murder of poachers, remember that they are most quite likely not evil, but rather ordinary poor people just trying to survive. The world is rarely that simple.

Yes but there's six billion of our species and very few rhino left. You could wipe out all the world's poachers and it be a rounding error on human population. While I don't think advocating killing anyone is a good idea, I have no sympathy for poachers.

What are you advocating here? This is a very disturbing statement.

Everybody is equal, except the people we don't like.

Yeah, it sure is an affront to the basics of civilized society when violent criminals are prosecuted. I mean, what justification is there aside from "we don't like them"?

Because I support prosecuting animal poachers, I do not approve of hunting them like animals themselves.

(Shrug) Sorry, I'm not 'equal' to a poacher. That's an idea that somebody spun from whole cloth, one that a lot of other people seem to accept as an unjustified axiom.

Although I don't support it myself, I live in America where there is the death penalty, so we already kill people for doing things we don't like.

I am advocating that the defense that poachers are just some poor schmuck that wants to feed himself is bullshit.

It would be "pretty exciting" to kill humans rather than arrest them and bring them to justice?

I don't think there's anything you could ever say to justify that position. It gives me the impression that you're a maniac.

I'm not agreeing with him here, but 'maniac' may be a bit heavy considering the following:

https://www.google.com/search?q=rhino+poaching&hl=en&...

Excitement is pretty natural if you look at it rationally. It's when killing humans isn't exciting, or worse yet when it's routine or boring, that you really have to worry.

It's worrying when someone is exited to kill people.

That's pretty vicious.

If we want to make a less violent world, we need less violent people. Will you add yourself to the target list?

Eye for an eye and the whole world will go blind, buddy

No it doesn't. There'll be one guy left with one eye. How's the last blind guy going to take out the eye of the last guy left whose still got one eye left? All that guy has to do is run away and hide behind a bush. Ghandi was wrong. It's just that nobody's got the balls to come out and say it.

-- Bill, Seven Psychopaths

Hahaha, fantastic.

Hoary old cliché is clichéd.

In this reality, the $50/shot business model would fall apart in a hurry. After the first couple of poachers were killed by drones, hunting season would be pretty much over. For everybody else, including the endangered animals, life would go on.

Yep, just exactly what is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Talibans surely are disbanding due to drone attacks.

The Taliban are poaching rhinos in Africa for a living now? Sounds like we've got them on the run, at least.

While killing poachers may be on balance the right thing to do, actually taking pleasure in the act of killing, even for "a good cause", tends to have bad effects on the killers.

Maybe read LTC Dave Grossman's standard book _On Killing_. http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-So...

This would be the same Col. Grossman who did the talk-show circuit after Columbine explaining all about how Doom made them do it, correct?

That's the nice thing about private security firms. They're not technically law enforcement, so there's no need for a trial.

Time for some positive drone PR. It helps divert disapproval of double tapped child murdering and paves the way for domestic abuse.

I hope this will reduce incidents like these[0].

My fear is that it might be too little too late.

[0] http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-99386/seven-rhinos-is...

Kill Decision is becoming real: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13542606-kill-decision

I hope we can save the Tigers there is around 3000-39000 left in the world by building up an sustainable tourist industry around them.

What if they just spent the $5M on developing and working with the people who are in need of poaching for a living...

Excellent Initiative..

Great and exciting use of technology, happy to read about Google doing stuff this. Really hope they publish the effects of it good or bad

Who do you think these poachers are?

way to go google, fix the world! it's only an algorithm problem

... And evades taxes to Bermuda ...

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