Following the continued illegal hunting of the most endangered species which are the rhinos and the elephants, they had to start using drones to monitor these animals in the park but one of Kenya’s largest game reserves has been forced to halt plans to use drones to monitor its endangered rhinos because of a government ban, so said the park officials.
Officials at Ol Pejeta conservancy where you find four of the world’s last remaining seven northern white rhinos said that they had planned this month to launch the “aerial ranger”, equipped with a thermal imaging camera to track wildlife in real time but then the Kenyan authorities have banned the private use of drones and said they are a security threat.
Elodie Sampere who is the conservancy’s spokesperson said while talking to the AFP that they have had these plans in the works for over a year now and were set for the launch but now the Kenya government has banned the private sector to use drones for a while.
The Ol Pejeta conservancy is about 90,000-acre and it’s a non-profit private wildlife sanctuary located in central Kenya and it has been for so long trying to finds ways to stop the well-funded and highly-equipped poachers and be able to protect the their wildlife. This is why they came up with a proposal to use a pilotless drone program in Ol Pejeta a year ago and then $46,000 was raised via a crowd funding platform to initiate the program. However, now it looks like this was all in vain.
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