Drone to protect rhinos

03november2014
Source: safaripark.nl
A team of Dutch students is participating in a worldwide challenge for the purpose of keeping watch on wild animal poachers. The Dutch team will be testing their product in Beekse Bergen Safari Park, where the situation is the closest to the one that the team will encounter in Africa.
The Wildlife Conservation UAV Challenge involves the search for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for monitoring poachers. The Dutch team consists of students from the Delft University of Technology, the University of Amsterdam, VU University Amsterdam and the University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam. They have developed a drone with a system which automatically recognises people and animals on video. The ultimate goal of the drone is to transmit information on rhinoceroses and the presence of poachers to rangers of Kruger National Park in South Africa.

To test the software, the team will take photos of the rhinos in Beekse Bergen Safari Park with a camera attached to a helium balloon. After a visit to South Africa, the team will return to Beekse Bergen to talk about the results of their project. They will do this as guests of Safari Inside, a new initiative of Beekse Bergen in which experts on conservation and other topics tell about wild animals and nature conservation projects.