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 Developed in partnership with other companies like Seven
Technologies Group, which specializes in security technology and
helped train rangers on conservation sites on how best to use
Instant Detect devices, ZSL hopes it could help the fight against
poaching, as well as the monitoring of endangered and other species.
In the last 40 years 95 percent of rhinoceroses have been poached
and more than 100,000 African elephants from 2011-2014 have been
illegally killed, according to the charity group.
Instant Detect is a camera trap system that uses satellite
technology to send images from anywhere in the world, according to
ZSL Conservation Technology Unit Project Manager, Louise Hartley.
"It's a camera that we would deploy in the wild, it has to be quite
sturdy and it often uses motion triggers, so it will have a passive
infrared sensor to detect heat changes, so as an animal or a person
walks past an image will be captured, and it's just a great way to
get an insight into the wild that you wouldn't be able to do if you
were a person," she said.
The satellite node uses a Raspberry Pi computer to send the images
via the Iridium satellite network, which is a satellite
constellation providing voice and data coverage to satellite phones,
pagers and other integrated transceivers.
 A filter moves across the lens detecting the change from day to
night and adjusting the camera accordingly, so it can see in the
dark using night vision.
According to Hartley, it has two main uses - monitoring and catching
poachers.
"We have a deployment in Antarctica to monitor penguins, so we're
getting images back daily to look at the penguin behavior and also
look at environmental change in that area," she said.
"We're also using it for anti-poaching purposes to improve security
within protected areas. So an alert, an image, would be sent to an
operations room and then rangers can then react accordingly to that
alert," she added.
If an intruder enters a protected area the camera picks that up and
sends an alert. It also has magnetic sensors that can pick up cars,
guns and even knives, also triggering the alert to local rangers.
The Instant Detect box has a camera lens in the middle, surrounded
by an LED array used for night-time imagery using infrared flash -
"so when it goes off you won't be able to see it, it's not visible
to the human eye," said Hartley.
"We have here the passive infrared sensor, so that's the motion
detector, so it detects heat change, so as a person or a species is
walking in it will trigger an image to be taken," she added, "you
can also set it to timelapse so you can set an image to be taken
every four hours or every five hours for example."
The crucial part, though, is how it talks to ZSL's monitors and to
local rangers.
"You have the antenna attached to the top here, and then you would
have a battery pack attached to the bottom here. When an image is
taken there's a separate unit called the satellite node, and the
images are sent via radio frequency to the satellite node and then
the satellite node uses the Iridium Satellite Network to send that
image to where you need it," Hartley said.
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Other anti-poaching technologies have come to the fore recently,
including the Real-Time Anti-Poaching Intelligence Device (RAPID)
developed by conservation organization Protect with support from the
Humane Society International.
DNA analysis, acoustic traps, thermal imaging and improving
analytics and mapping are all contributing to the fight against
poaching as well.
ZSL hopes that Instant Detect could be a crucial addition to that
growing arsenal, in what remains a battle with high costs.
The Kruger Park, South Africa's main tourist draw, is one place on
the front-line of the battle against a surge in rhino poaching for
the animal's horn to meet demand in countries such as Vietnam, where
it is a coveted ingredient in traditional medicine.
The poaching of rhinos there rose in 2015, although it was on the
decline elsewhere in the country.
ZSL has limited ambitions for the time being on the device's usage,
although they do eventually want to scale up and roll it out even
further.
"For the business aspect of Instant Detect, we're really just using
it for conservation purposes, so we'll roll it out to two different
sites for anti-poaching or for remote monitoring. A lot of that will
be through grant funded, but also we may sell additional systems to
four conservation uses," Hartley said.
"We want to bring in new transmission methods," she added.
"So as new connectivity is improving around the world, in addition
to satellite, we'd also like to have GSM capabilities in there, so
when it is available we can send it by mobile networks, because it
is a lot cheaper than satellite."
"We also want to look at how we can reduce the cost so it is more
scalable and do things like improve image quality, so you get a
really, really great image which would support evidence for example
in prosecutions," she added.
ZSL is also focusing on countries where they have resources and man
power to follow up on conservation work.
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