Night-time poachers tracked down by star-hunting cameras
STAR-HUNTING technology designed to pick out galaxies in the night sky is being repurposed to spot poachers threatening endangered animals.
The Royal Astronomical Society has teamed up with ecologists at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) to conduct trials using drones fitted with infra-red cameras capable of automatically detecting the thermal signatures of creatures in the dark.
Usually the technology is used to sweep the sky looking for the glow of far-off stars or galaxies invisible to the naked eye. But the team has worked alongside Chester Zoo and Knowsley Safari Park to reprogramme the software with a library of animals and environments so it can spot different creatures in a variety of landscapes.
The first field trials were carried out on endangered Riverine rabbits in South Africa last September and next month the team will travel to Malaysia to study orang-utans, followed by spider monkeys in Mexico and river dolphins in Brazil.
Dr Claire Burke, of LJMU, said: “With thermal infra-red cameras, we can easily see animals as a result of their body heat, day or night, and even when they are camouflaged in their natural environment.
“Since animals and humans in thermal footage ‘glow’ in the same way as stars and galaxies in space, we have been able to combine the technical expertise of astronomers with the conservation knowledge of ecologists to develop a system to find the animals or poachers automatically.”
Most poaching happens at night, when it is difficult for gamekeepers to keep track of animals and hunters in the dark.
But the programmed drones can survey large areas of terrain, monitoring regions that are hard to reach without disturbing the animals.
The project was presented at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Sciences in Liverpool this week.