Canine Tracking

Canine anti-poaching solution to prevent attacks, catch poachers and protect endangered species.

Smarter Technologies Group has partnered with the Animals Saving Animals organisation to create a unique and highly effective Canine Tracking Unit, designed to prevent poachers from making unauthorised attacks, catch them in the act and protect wildlife.

Poaching

Black Market

The illegal wildlife trade is valued at between $7–$23 billion USD per year and is in the top 5 most lucrative crimes in the world. In Asian countries rhino horn is believed to have medicinal and age defying properties as well as being considered a status symbol. This belief that rhino horn has medical benefits has also spread to other countries that have embraced Asian medicine, which in turn is increasing the black market value of the horns. Ivory remains a high value black market commodity and tigers’ skins and bones are also popular. Trophy hunters pay huge amounts of money to gain illegal entry into game reserves and conservancies to shoot endangered animals so they can display their skins, horns and skulls.

Pangolins

Pangolin scales are also highly desirable on the black market and between 2013 and 2016 almost 20 tonnes of illegally shipped African pangolin scales from around 39,000 pangolins, were intercepted by customs. In China recently, 2 Chinese men were given suspended death sentences for smuggling pangolins, but not before they had sold enough scales, flesh, blood and urine to accumulate nearly $3.2 million from the black market in just over six months.

Rhino Poaching Statistics

On account of the comparative density of the rhino population and presence of other endangered and rare animals, South Africa is the most prevalent area for poaching rhinos. According to Save the Rhino, there is at least one arrest per day for crimes against rhinos and, in the last 20 years, more than 7,000 African rhinos has been lost to poaching. From 2007-2014 rhino poaching increased by 9,000% and in 2016 alone, there were nearly 3 rhino deaths per day at the hands of poachers.

Global Poaching

As South Africa has started to take a stronger stance against poaching in order to protect these endangered species, poaching is now spreading outside of South Africa and into other African countries, which have less resources to implement anti-poaching strategies. Other global locations where poaching and the illegal wildlife trade are a major problem are China, Russia, Burma, Nepal, Thailand, India, Malaysia, South America, Laos and Vietnam. The animals most at risk include rhinos, tigers, bears, pangolins and civets.

Ranger Fatalities

When we think of poaching, we generally think of the need to protect the endangered animals who are the main target of the attack. In actual fact, the rangers working on the conservancies are in just as much danger from poachers, with India and Africa being the 2 locations with the highest number of ranger fatalities due to poaching.

According to the International Ranger Federation, at least 1,000 rangers have died in the line of duty in the past 10 years and many other casualties are known to have not been officially reported. In addition to the tragic loss of life, a lot of rangers in these countries do not have any life insurance and their families are left without their main source if income.

Local Communities

A knock-on effect of this continuing rise in poaching-related deaths is that an increasing number of rangers have adopted a “shoot to kill” policy to protect themselves from poachers. Some governments have adopted a zero tolerance to poaching policy, which has seen even poachers who have surrendered, getting shot after the event. There are also communities of people living in the same areas as the rhino whose safety is at risk from the gun fights between rangers and poachers.

Intelligence on Poaching Gangs

The top wildlife conservation organisations advocate that protecting the animals and arresting the poachers, without resorting to gun violence, should be the primary goals. Focussing on securing an arrest protects human rights and allows officials to gain intelligence on the wider poaching organisations so that they can be shut down.

Smarter Technologies Group’s Partnership with Animals Saving Animals

 

Any solution therefore, needs to be aimed at deterring and preventing the attacks, and in the case of an attack being varied out, bringing the poaching attack to an end without any animals or people being killed or seriously injured.

Smarter Technologies Group has partnered with the brilliant Animals Saving Animals organisation to create an anti-poaching solution that addresses all of these poaching challenges while safeguarding the animals and better protecting the human rights of both the rangers and the poachers.

Animals Saving Animals

Founded in July 2016 by ex-military dog training instructor, Daryll Pleasants, Animals Saving Animals supplies anti-poaching dogs and full dog training programs to prevent wildlife crime and poaching in conservancies and national parks all over the world. The majority of poaching incidents occur at night, which makes it very difficult for rangers to track and capture the perpetrators.

Animals saving Animals

Belgian Malinois Dogs

The Belgian Malinios dogs trained for the canine protection and tracking units are not only an excellent deterrent, but also have the ability to track both in the day and at night, in a range of weather conditions, across different terrains and environments. Each puppy is housed & trained in the U.K for a year. After their stage one training is complete the dogs begin their stage two tracker and operational training on location at the conservancies.

Orion Canine & Wildlife Tracking Solutions

 
Canine Tracking

Smarter Technologies Group is now working with Animals Saving Animals, providing specially designed canine tracking equipment so that Rangers can track their dogs when they are in pursuit of poachers. This hardware is a variation on the Orion D360 dog collar and attaches to the dog units’ harnesses. When the dogs are released to pursue and intruder or poacher the RFID, GPS and IoT-enabled tracking devices send data back to the ranger, over the Orion Data Network, giving the location and status of each dog and therefore also of the poachers they’re chasing.

 
Rhino Tracking

Smarter Technologies can also provide the W360 collar which is worn by the rhinos themselves to determine their location, temperature and status at all times. Conservation staff can predetermine geofenced location and the system will alert them if the rhinos step outside of the designated area or you can track the rhinos favourite routes, their behaviour in their habitat and their health. In addition, we create security solutions connected to the Orion Data Network to secure the perimeter and vulnerable areas of your conservation site.

The specially designed Canine Tracking Unit equipment and other conservation solutions are cost effective, highly accurate and feedback data in real-time with updates and alerts delivered to your mobile device, pager or email.

 
Other Wildlife Conservancy Applications

This hardware and technology can be used for any canine protection unit to protect entire sites, prevent and catch intruders and thieves, or protect VIPs and high value assets.

NFC Group Mkomazi national park tracking

Benefits of Orion Canine Units for Anti-Poaching

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Enables tracking of canine protection and tracking units to pinpoint the whereabout of the dogs and the intruders they are chasing

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Deters poachers and helps prevent and intercept poaching attacks

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Saves human lives by assisting rangers in capturing poachers without the use of excessive force or gun fire

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Protects the canine tracking unit

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Helps to secure capture and arrest of poachers and intruders

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Existing hardware or solutions tailored to individual conservation projects

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Lightweight to ensure your dogs are comfortable

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Waterproof casing for use in all weather across all terrains

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