Elephants Behave with SMS and GPS

elephant in nairobi kenya
Jake Wall's software AnimalLink uses SMS and GPS technology to prevent elephants hoarding the farms in Kenya. So far, 44 of these lovely and big creatures have been tagged with the software that reports their current position to authorities.

Wall estimates thousands of dollars of damage have been avoided after the elephants were tagged. AnimalLink sends the exact position of the elephants to a server in Nairobi and if the animals are getting close to a farm, rangers are dispatched to prevent the incident.

The software cannot unfortunately do much against illegal hunters and poachers, however, Wall is upgrading it so that AnimalLink will send a text message if an elephant does not make a move for more than five hours.

Image: Save the Elephants

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2009 at 12:33 AM

    For a minute there I actually thought the elephants had been taught to SMS. So I started imagining the size of the keypad for elephants :)

    This is an excellent use of technology. As you say it would be great to have technology to prevent poaching. Maybe every human entering the game park should be similarly tagged. That way if the elephant stops moving for more than five hours then the human who was there 5 hrs ago could be investigated?

    ReplyDelete
  2. ArchiverJanuary 20, 2009 at 1:17 AM

    The reason why a text message is triggered after five hours is elephants are known to sleep four hours the most. So, if an elephant is at the same spot after this period, it usually is not a good sign. I forgot to add this detail.

    For game parks, I will recommend a camera. :-)

    ReplyDelete

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