Email

GPS tracking is used for some unusual purposes, including tracking elephants. Beginning in the 1960s, poaching of elephants for the high price their ivory was not only commonplace, but had reached alarming levels and ultimately reduced the elephant populations in Africa and Asia from three million to the 250,000 alive today. While this problem had diminished in the last two decades, helped by the worldwide ban on trafficking ivory by the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, elephant deaths were up dramatically this past year — more than in the past two decades.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who founded Save the Elephants in 1993, has spent his life protecting these gentle, lumbering giants. He was one of first to sound the alarm about the massive slaughter of elephants. These days, he takes advantage of technology by affixing GPS tracking collars to the elephants and then studies their patterns utilizing GPS in conjunction with Google Earth. He attributes the 36,000 elephant deaths last year to an increased interest in ivory, particularly in China and some large U.S. cities.  Ivory, or white gold as it is sometimes known, has soared in price due to its limited availability.

The ivory ban is still in effect, but many countries have a stockpile of ivory that they would like to sell to take advantage of the current market conditions. These countries plan to reinvest the profits back into elephant conservation efforts, but Douglas-Hamilton feels that this would greatly increase poaching activity and illegal trade.

Elephants travel to safe areas, so the GPS tracking is particularly useful for studying migration patterns and looking for evidence of poaching and other dangers. One danger Douglas-Hamilton was alerted to this past year was a severe drought that threatened a herd of rare desert elephants in Kenya and Mali.

Douglas-Hamilton was the recent recipient of the $100,000 Indianapolis Prize for conservation in 2010.  No doubt he will funnel his winnings back into his decades long fight to protect elephants and ensure their continued existence.

Article Written by Greg Bartlett