WILDLIFE POACHERS WHO stalk endangered animals in East and South Africa have long operated under the cover of night. But lately not even a moonless sky is safe cover for stalking impalas, elephants, and rhinos. Now, the power of increasingly inexpensive infrared cameras, artificial intelligence, and drones are being used to stop illegal poaching. Rangers are rounding up veteran poachers in the middle of the night, says Colby Loucks, World Wildlife Fund’s senior director of wildlife crime technology, who ask, dumbfounded, “How are you finding me?'”
This spring, the World Wildlife Fund began deploying thermal sensing infrared technology from the imaging company FLIR to combat poaching in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Conservancy park—and at another secret location that’s home to rhinos, one of the most imperiled creatures on Earth. The technology, which detects a narrow sliver of the electro-magnetic spectrum of reflected or emitted heat, could become a critical tool in the fight to protect endangered species. Anything living appears as a white or grey blob on a screen or in a viewfinder, no light needed.
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https://www.wired.com/2016/11/watch-wildlife-rangers-use-thermal-imaging-nab-poachers/
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