Semtech LoRaWAN Rhino Tracker
Rhinos are one of the world’s most endangered and iconic species. An estimated 900 are killed every year for their rhino horns, which are typically sold on the black market and distributed as traditional medicines in Asia.
How to protect Rhinos given limited resources to combat poachers? The Smart Park Foundation has a novel solution. The Foundation was created by The Internet of Life and the ShadowView Foundation, two non-profit organizations that merged in order to focus on creating novel technology for environmental conservation. In 2017, Smart Park created the LoRa sensor that can be directly implanted into a rhino’s horn. About the size of a salt shaker, the LoRa includes a mobile GPS sensor that uses Internet of Things technology to connect to monitoring devices that allow park rangers to track rhinos in real-time. Knowing where rhinos are and tracking their activity patterns can help rangers plan routes and create protection strategies against illegal poaching activities.
Smart Park’s technology is now being used at Mkomazi National Park (one of 14 official National Parks in Tanzania) and is a part of a larger initiative to improve security and reduce attacks against both rhinos and park personnel.
Massawe, Erick Alphonce, Michael Kisangiri, Shubi Kaijage, and Padmanabhan Seshaiyer. ” An intelligent real-time wireless sensor network tracking system for monitoring rhinos and elephants in Tanzania national parks: A review.” (2017). International Journal of Advanced Smart Sensor Network Systems (IJASSN), Vol 7, No.4, October 2017
Semtech Corporation. 2017, Jan. 17. “Semtech LoRa Technology Tracks Location of Endangered Black Rhinos in Africa. https://www.semtech.com/company/press/semtech-lora-technology-tracks-location-of-endangered-black-rhinos-in-africa
Categories
Biodiversity, Internet of Things, Monitoring
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