Using UAVs Against Animal Poachers

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Large mammals such as elephants and rhinos face the risk of extinction because of demand for their horns. This demand has persisted in spite of international  treaties banning the trade in these and other animal trophies. In a number of blog posts such as this I have made the claim that policy based on the need to conserve species such as the elephant have failed to work because the ivory from elephants and rhino are so valuable that a small number of poachers and networks of crime are able to harvest them and illegally appropriate large financial gains. In parts of east Africa, the poachers have continued to utilize high powered weapons to kills elephants in order to meet the large demand for ivory in south eastern Asia generally and in China in particular.  

The claim of this blogger is that while treaties are useful for an coordinated approach to a problem that transcends borders, it is unlikely to be useful because of the strong financial incentives. To my mind, the solution must involve both a market approach and a technological approach. An article in the Scientific American discussed a high end technological approach that includes use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance of vast parks in order to alert rangers to the existence of poachers. This innovative use of technology is a welcome addition to the quest to detect and deter poachers. It is too early to tell how effective this new approach will be but it cannot be the silver bullet to ending poaching. It is still possible that the assignment of property rights on the endangered animals would ensure that a more comprehensive set of approaches are invented to reduce the high premium that poachers extract from illegal trade.