FREE-FLYING drones have now been integrated in the conservation efforts within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where they are now used to patrol the park, scare poachers away and drive back stray elephants into the reserve.
According to the Assistant Conservator
for the Mbulu-Mbulu Zone in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Mr Elvis
Mashele, drones are proving to be better at the task due to their
capabilities to fly high and low on and around all terrains, forests and
over animal clusters.
“When elephants stray out of the park
and run to local villages or farms, we fly the drones over the jumbos.
And since these machines hum like swarms of bees, the elephants get
frightened and thus flee back into the park,” stated Mr Mashele.
There have been constant conflicts
between farmers in Karatu and elephants from Ngorongoro as the jumbos
leave the park, invade farms and destroy crops.
The drones, when equipped with cameras,
can also patrol the precinct; take pictures of selected scenes or
suspected poachers and in some instances, they can also be equipped with
dynamites that can be fired to create loud but safe bangs to scare
intruders.
Mr Mashele pointed out the fact that a
drone could be programmed to fly back to base after periodical flights,
makes them even more perfect and reliable for certain tasks, data
collection and aerial patrol.
“Each drone can contain three
kilogrammes of attached equipment, including its own or auxiliary
cameras, a bag of explosives, pepper sprays to drive large mammals away
and other tools,” said the Zonal Head for Mbulu-Mbulu Ward in Karatu,
which strides the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, as well as the adjacent
Northern Highland Forest Reserve, which is also run by the NCAA.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area,
covering 8,300 square kilometres, is made up of vast highland plains,
savannah woodlands and equatorial forests, from the plains of the
Serengeti National Park in the north-west, to the eastern arm of the
Great Rift Valley.
It is being governed by the Ngorongoro
Conservation Area Authority (NCAA), which has since 1959 run the area as
a multiple land use area, with wildlife living alongside semi-nomadic
Maasai pastoralists practising traditional livestock grazing.
NCAA includes the legendary Ngorongoro
Crater, the world’s sixth largest unbroken and caldera, and Olduvai
Gorge, the 14km long deep ravine.
It is also the site of global importance
for biodiversity conservation in view of the presence of globally
threatened species such as the black Rhino, the density of wildlife
inhabiting the Ngorongoro Crater and surrounding areas throughout the
year, and the annual migration of wildebeest, zebra and other ungulates
No comments :
Post a Comment