Drones put to good use

When you think of drones, you may imagine annoying whirring machines filling the air or shutting down Gatwick. But some projects have found ways to put drones to better use, saving endangered animals, watching for floods and starting fires – but in a good way.

BATHAWK ON ELEPHANT PATROL

Poachers kill an elephant every 14 minutes across the African continent, while a rhino is killed twice a day. That’s according to Air Shepherd, an organisation that uses drones to watch for threats to wildlife in reserves across South Africa, Malawi and Zimbabwe. It then alerts anti-poaching teams and park rangers. In particular, the drones monitor water holes, which poachers poison with cyanide before returning to remove tusks from the dead elephants that drink from it. Made by UAV Drone Solutions in South Africa, the “BatHawk” drones can stay in the air for two hours, relaying live video back to base. The project says that poaching has fallen in regions where the drones are deployed.

WATCHING FOR FLOODS

Researchers at the University of Ghana and the local meteorological agency teamed up to trial the use of drones to watch over an area of the coastline prone to flooding and erosion. The region, Fuvemeh, is along the Volta river, where a combination of human intervention, higher rainfall and higher sea levels has wreaked havoc. The drones collect images for tracking changes, as well as show the damage that’s already happened, without the cost of plane-based aerial photography.

WE’RE THE FIRESTARTERS

Drones are used around the world to spot and monitor fires. But in the US, a startup called Throwflame uses drones to spray lit gasoline, or drop tiny igniting bombs, into forests. That may sound unhelpful, but government agencies use smaller, controlled fires to avoid overgrowth that can lead to monstrous fires that are impossible to fight.