On January 10, three drones flew low over the forests of northern Madhya Pradesh. They weren't on a military operation. Rather, their mission was to track the 23 tigers in the Panna Tiger Reserve and to look for signs of poachers.
It was the first time that unmanned aerial vehicles were being used for wildlife conservation in India. The programme by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Wildlife Institute of India and the officials at Panna aims to protect the country’s endangered national animal, the tiger.
In the five years from 2008, the population of striped cats in India's 44 tiger reserves actually grew to 1,706 from an estimated 1,411 in 2008 , thanks to coordinated efforts by officials and non-government organisations.
But tiger reserves have also seen an alarming rise in poacher attacks. According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, 32 tigers were killed by poachers in 2012. Last year, the figure rose to 48.
In response, tiger reserves are deploying a slew of technological interventions to protect the animal. Here are some of them.
Drones
Nepal’s Chitwan National Park had been losing an average of one rhino every month to poachers before the World Wildlife Federation began a drone surveillance programme in 2012. That year, only two rhinos were killed in Chitwan.
Unmanned aerial vehicles were introduced in the world of wildlife conservation fairly recently, but taking a cue from their success in Nepal, Kenya and South Africa, the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India decided to bring drones to India.
“There had been proposals to introduce them in Kaziranga [in Assam] but flying drones near military areas requires special clearances, which were finally given for Panna Tiger Reserve,” said K Ramesh, the Wildlife Institute of India's UAV coordinator.
Officials at the Panna reserve are particularly motivated to run the drone programme. In 2009, the reserve had lost all its 20 tigers to poachers and other man-animal conflicts. That year, they launched a tiger-reintroduction drive which has restored the number of tigers in the reserve to 23 so far.
The NTCA bought three light-weight drones, small enough to be launched by hand, for Rs 5 lakh each from a non-profit called ConservationDrones.org. The machines are equipped with high-resolution video and still cameras. They can fly a distance of 40 kms and stay in the air for an hour. Panna will soon get two more of these drones as well as heat-sensitive cameras that will be able to capture footage of warm-blooded animals at night.
Aerial cameras aren't without their problems. For instance, they can't penetrate especially thickly forested areas of the reserve. “Drones are best suited to survey open grasslands, meadows and river banks," said Ramesh. "But these are also the places where most poachers tend to intrude from.”
Besides keeping a check on poachers, Ramesh says the drones could help track animals on the move. For instance, if an animal is headed towards a human settlement on the outskirts of the reserve, low-flying drones could be used to chase it away, or to warn the local communities.
However, the effectiveness of drones ultimately depends on the strength of the ground force that takes on poachers once the camera catches sight of them. “Panna does have the manpower for it, but most tiger reserves in India provide very rudimentary protection at the ground level,” said Anish Andheria, president of the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Trust.
Sensor Communication Networks
Also to be introduced in Panna, this simple system of microchips and fibre optic cables is fitted with motion, acoustic and thermal sensors. When hidden strategically along a path, the sensors send signals to the headquarters whenever an animal or human moves in front of them.
The Wildlife Institute created the system by facilitating a collaboration between a team at the Ohio State University, which designed the microchips, and scientists at the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Allahabad, who designed the optical cables. The Panna reserve has acquired five sensor chips and five optic cables that will be tested over the next six months.
“India has been lagging behind in forest management and we had been researching different advanced wireless technologies to take it to the next level,” said Ramesh. “The sensor communication networks are cost effective and if they turn out to be durable in the field, their use can be upscaled across India.”
While the main purpose of installing sensors would be to monitor the movement of animals and human intruders, they could also be used to send out signals to rail and road drivers if an animal is about to cross their path.
“Large numbers of animals are dying at road crossings, so if drivers could be warned to slow down, many lives could be saved,” said Ramesh.
The E-eye
Short for the electronic eye, the E-eye project began in Uttarakhand’s Jim Corbett National Park in 2012 as an attempt to keep a watch on vast stretches of the most sensitive areas of the forest.
The project involves ten high-resolution cameras mounted on tall towers across a 350 sq km area. Run on solar power and equipped with night-vision lenses, the cameras can capture footage as far as 3 kms away. They have been successfully capturing 24-hour footage in the national park since they were launched.
E-eyes are wired to send out alerts to the cell phones of the centrally-located operator every time it detects the presence of warm-blooded animals around it. “They have been a great way to monitor wildlife, poachers and illegal miners in sensitive parts of the sanctuary,” said Anish Andheria of the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Trust.
In the past two years, the cameras have helped bring down poaching and have also been helpful for warning villagers about approaching animals. But the project cost the NTCA Rs 3.5 crore, making it too expensive to be replicated in other tiger reserves.
“E-eyes can be very useful in areas where the man-animal conflict is high, but as of now, they would only be financially viable in reserves where the costs of such conflicts are very high, such as parts of the Bandipur sanctuary in Karnataka or parts of Kaziranga,” said Andheria.
Camera traps
Before the NTCA made camera traps mandatory in all sanctuaries in 2006, tiger counting in India was largely done through the unreliable and inaccurate pug-mark tracking method. Calculating the density of tiger populations has become far simpler using camera traps: a piece of equipment with a camera that sends out an infra-red beam to a receiver placed opposite it.
The cameras and receivers are placed at regular intervals along the wildcat's known paths. When a tiger (or poacher) crosses the path and cuts through the infra-red beam, a photo is immediately captured, day or night. Since every tiger has its own unique pattern of stripes, sanctuary officials can study the images to keep a count of the tigers in the area.
In 2011, the NTCA decided to use the camera-trapping method of counting tigers to create UTIDs – unique tiger identification cards – for each striped cat in the country. With the 2014 tiger estimation census underway, several sanctuaries are already in their final phases of counting.
Ranthambore in Rajasthan has nearly 400 cameras, Tadoba in Maharashtra has 326 and Panna has 200. However, not all tiger reserves have been able to equip themselves with camera traps, which could affect the census results.
Though more than 30 of India’s 44 notified tiger reserves have camera traps, some don’t have them because they lack funds, said Andheria. However, he says that most sanctuaries are working hard to ensure that their entire areas are camera trapped, even if it means having to rotate the handful of cameras they possess.
“Only in certain reserves that fall under Naxal zones, camera trapping is not being done at all,” he said.
It was the first time that unmanned aerial vehicles were being used for wildlife conservation in India. The programme by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Wildlife Institute of India and the officials at Panna aims to protect the country’s endangered national animal, the tiger.
In the five years from 2008, the population of striped cats in India's 44 tiger reserves actually grew to 1,706 from an estimated 1,411 in 2008 , thanks to coordinated efforts by officials and non-government organisations.
But tiger reserves have also seen an alarming rise in poacher attacks. According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, 32 tigers were killed by poachers in 2012. Last year, the figure rose to 48.
In response, tiger reserves are deploying a slew of technological interventions to protect the animal. Here are some of them.
Drones
Nepal’s Chitwan National Park had been losing an average of one rhino every month to poachers before the World Wildlife Federation began a drone surveillance programme in 2012. That year, only two rhinos were killed in Chitwan.
Unmanned aerial vehicles were introduced in the world of wildlife conservation fairly recently, but taking a cue from their success in Nepal, Kenya and South Africa, the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India decided to bring drones to India.
“There had been proposals to introduce them in Kaziranga [in Assam] but flying drones near military areas requires special clearances, which were finally given for Panna Tiger Reserve,” said K Ramesh, the Wildlife Institute of India's UAV coordinator.
Officials at the Panna reserve are particularly motivated to run the drone programme. In 2009, the reserve had lost all its 20 tigers to poachers and other man-animal conflicts. That year, they launched a tiger-reintroduction drive which has restored the number of tigers in the reserve to 23 so far.
The NTCA bought three light-weight drones, small enough to be launched by hand, for Rs 5 lakh each from a non-profit called ConservationDrones.org. The machines are equipped with high-resolution video and still cameras. They can fly a distance of 40 kms and stay in the air for an hour. Panna will soon get two more of these drones as well as heat-sensitive cameras that will be able to capture footage of warm-blooded animals at night.
Aerial cameras aren't without their problems. For instance, they can't penetrate especially thickly forested areas of the reserve. “Drones are best suited to survey open grasslands, meadows and river banks," said Ramesh. "But these are also the places where most poachers tend to intrude from.”
Besides keeping a check on poachers, Ramesh says the drones could help track animals on the move. For instance, if an animal is headed towards a human settlement on the outskirts of the reserve, low-flying drones could be used to chase it away, or to warn the local communities.
However, the effectiveness of drones ultimately depends on the strength of the ground force that takes on poachers once the camera catches sight of them. “Panna does have the manpower for it, but most tiger reserves in India provide very rudimentary protection at the ground level,” said Anish Andheria, president of the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Trust.
Sensor Communication Networks
Also to be introduced in Panna, this simple system of microchips and fibre optic cables is fitted with motion, acoustic and thermal sensors. When hidden strategically along a path, the sensors send signals to the headquarters whenever an animal or human moves in front of them.
The Wildlife Institute created the system by facilitating a collaboration between a team at the Ohio State University, which designed the microchips, and scientists at the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Allahabad, who designed the optical cables. The Panna reserve has acquired five sensor chips and five optic cables that will be tested over the next six months.
“India has been lagging behind in forest management and we had been researching different advanced wireless technologies to take it to the next level,” said Ramesh. “The sensor communication networks are cost effective and if they turn out to be durable in the field, their use can be upscaled across India.”
While the main purpose of installing sensors would be to monitor the movement of animals and human intruders, they could also be used to send out signals to rail and road drivers if an animal is about to cross their path.
“Large numbers of animals are dying at road crossings, so if drivers could be warned to slow down, many lives could be saved,” said Ramesh.
The E-eye
Short for the electronic eye, the E-eye project began in Uttarakhand’s Jim Corbett National Park in 2012 as an attempt to keep a watch on vast stretches of the most sensitive areas of the forest.
The project involves ten high-resolution cameras mounted on tall towers across a 350 sq km area. Run on solar power and equipped with night-vision lenses, the cameras can capture footage as far as 3 kms away. They have been successfully capturing 24-hour footage in the national park since they were launched.
E-eyes are wired to send out alerts to the cell phones of the centrally-located operator every time it detects the presence of warm-blooded animals around it. “They have been a great way to monitor wildlife, poachers and illegal miners in sensitive parts of the sanctuary,” said Anish Andheria of the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Trust.
In the past two years, the cameras have helped bring down poaching and have also been helpful for warning villagers about approaching animals. But the project cost the NTCA Rs 3.5 crore, making it too expensive to be replicated in other tiger reserves.
“E-eyes can be very useful in areas where the man-animal conflict is high, but as of now, they would only be financially viable in reserves where the costs of such conflicts are very high, such as parts of the Bandipur sanctuary in Karnataka or parts of Kaziranga,” said Andheria.
Camera traps
Before the NTCA made camera traps mandatory in all sanctuaries in 2006, tiger counting in India was largely done through the unreliable and inaccurate pug-mark tracking method. Calculating the density of tiger populations has become far simpler using camera traps: a piece of equipment with a camera that sends out an infra-red beam to a receiver placed opposite it.
The cameras and receivers are placed at regular intervals along the wildcat's known paths. When a tiger (or poacher) crosses the path and cuts through the infra-red beam, a photo is immediately captured, day or night. Since every tiger has its own unique pattern of stripes, sanctuary officials can study the images to keep a count of the tigers in the area.
In 2011, the NTCA decided to use the camera-trapping method of counting tigers to create UTIDs – unique tiger identification cards – for each striped cat in the country. With the 2014 tiger estimation census underway, several sanctuaries are already in their final phases of counting.
Ranthambore in Rajasthan has nearly 400 cameras, Tadoba in Maharashtra has 326 and Panna has 200. However, not all tiger reserves have been able to equip themselves with camera traps, which could affect the census results.
Though more than 30 of India’s 44 notified tiger reserves have camera traps, some don’t have them because they lack funds, said Andheria. However, he says that most sanctuaries are working hard to ensure that their entire areas are camera trapped, even if it means having to rotate the handful of cameras they possess.
“Only in certain reserves that fall under Naxal zones, camera trapping is not being done at all,” he said.
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