Using drones and big data to stop poaching | Hacker News Reader

Using drones and big data to stop poaching

indiegogo.com

66 pointsadamnemecek22 comments

There are two key problems I am aware of. First, some countries such as South Africa banns UAVs so it is in fact illegal to deploy such systems. This was the key problem for the "Rhino challenge" from the last year. Second, it is much easier for the poachers to find rhinos/elephants using UAVs as opposed to use UAVs to protect them.

> some countries such as South Africa bans UAVs

This might have changed since that competition: I've recently been seeing quadcopters in stores.

A close-by area is protected by threat of death: poachers can be shot on sight by, effectively, mercenaries. I'm not sure how this was legally achieved but after one actually got shot[1] poaching activity has somewhat died down.

[1]: http://thebeat.linmedia.co.za/articles/crime/26415/2014-08-2...

Reading the title, I had some interesting head cinema imagining drones from stopping recruiters entering cafés close to Facebook, Apple and Google and poaching employees...

Yeah, I thought someone used drones to stalk his/her employees and prevent them from being approach by recruiters. Boy that sounded creepy, I think the title should be changed to the article's one: "Air Shepherd Drones Stop Elephant & Rhino Poaching"

TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT ENFORCED BY AIRCRAFT.

Poaching is illegal. But owning elephant tusks isn't . In fact it is considered a luxury.

I don't think making ivory illegal would fix the Problem. It would increase the value of ivory even more and make poaching more profitable.

The only real solution I see is the mass production of a synthetic that can't be identified from real ivory. This would make ivory so cheap that poaching no longer is profitable enough.

Fakes don't work for luxury items. Wealthy people still prefer mined diamonds to their synthetic counterparts. The whole point of buying a real one is to demonstrate your wealth.

Which is determined by rarity. Reducing supply will increase the rarity and thus increase the status from owning ivory. This results in those using it as a status symbol having even greater desire.

We're actually working on this at IndieBio!

http://www.pembient.com

Flood the market with 3D printed tusks?

I wonder how much rhino/elephant tusk powder sold is actually from the said animal. Seems like a really tough thing to authenticate and an excellent return for the counterfeiter.

So make it so that every corner store in China has "Authentic Rhino Horn". No one can tell the difference between the real and the fake stuff, discourages buyers from buying, market dries up.

They'd never know.

I'm not a vet, but I don't imagine ivory contains any DNA so therefore customers couldn't test it for proper rhino/elephant DNA. Would be able to test it with something like MALDI-TOF to properly identify it, but that is not easily accessible outside of academia.

You can get DNA from Ivory.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/10/4228.full

Bioengineering wildlife products is something my start-up, Pembient, has been working on for a while now.

Interesting, are the tusks vascularized or is the DNA material coming from the interface between tusk and growth center? If the later, could poaches therefore prevent tracking with proper cleaning and preparation of the tusks?

Checked out Pembient, very cool idea and I hope you succeed. Also subscribed to newsletter.

Thanks! Tusks are similar to teeth, so there is a nerve root, etc.

https://www.thedodo.com/community/Elegirl/the-truth-about-tu...

Taking just the tip of a tusk might be the best option for evading a DNA test.

They already do...

http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/132/1321179326....

Vice did a piece on Rhino poaching : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1zEiDeAqiE

What does it say about the IT industry that I first thought that the title referred to poaching employees?

Great idea until someone realizes that if this can be used to track rhinos, it can also be used to track humans.

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