Checkpoints are used throughout the world to try to stem the flood of animals parts:   ivory, horns, skins, bushmeat, and other contraband contributing to the muli-billion dollar bussiness in animal parts and the decimation of wildlife. Checkpoints may be at border crossings - on logging roads - or any conduits used for smuggling. They often are only a simple pole gate across a road, manned by a single inspector in an adjacent shack.       The value of the contraband being smuggled often greatly exceed the inspector's salary.  The inspector is continually...


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It is often sugested that "all" that needs to be done to solve elephant and other poaching problems  is to reduce the demand. There is one problem there - or rather 7 billion problems. For example, in China if you somehow managed to convince 99.9% of the population not to buy ivory - an impossible task, but just say you could - that 0.1% that remained unconvinced represents 1.3 million people still wanting to buy ivory.   Using persuasion to change people's views on the consumptive use of wildlife is important. You can shift the mean of the distribution of human behavior in a favorable...


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If rangers out on a routine patrol encounter a gang of poachers, it is quite likely the poachers will be better armed than the rangers. However, if the rangers are part of a rapid response team sent out as a result of a pictures sent be a TrailGuard camera, they will know exactly what to expect and can prepare accordingly - "forewarned is forearmed". The rangers now will have the upper hand, going on the offensive against the poachers who have no idea they have been detected and that a patrol has been sent out to engage them.   In today's battle against poachers it is not just battles...


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  The success that anti-snaring teams have is a demonstration of one of the key ideas behind TrailGuard. Namely, that the trails used by poachers are well-known. All the snares pictured above were picked put by rangers who walked along the exact same trails as did the poachers who placed the snares.  Only the rangers walked the trails long after the poachers. And long enough after that in many cases and animal could already have been snared. If  instead TrailGuards had been set out beforehand - as traps for poachers - every poacher who set those snares on those  trails would himself...


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Tiger researchers had placed a standard wildlife camera trap for a routine population study of tigers in India. This is one non-tiger species the camera trap captured.... report  from "The Telegraph" Calcutta, India, Jan 14, 2011 This poacher was responsible for the death of a rhino When the researches recovered the flash card from the camera trap it was determined from the date of the image that this image had been taken days before the rhino was killed. Had the camera trap been able to transmit the image immediately to rangers when the poacher passed, the poacher might have...


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    Tracking dogs have been used effectively in helping rangers home in on poachers. Unfortunately, the trail usually starts with the discovery of a dead animal. And then the dogs are brought in to acquire the sent and the search begins to find the person who committed the crime. That is too late for the animal. And we will be fighting a loosing war against poaching if we only react after the crime has been committed. Anti-poaching needs to to pre-emptive rather than reactive. We need to discover that a poacher has entered an area with the intent to kill and apprehend...


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  Preemptive Anti-Poaching Technology Catching the poacher before he kills Technology, as a tool, is an incredibly powerful lever. It is what has enabled one ape - us - to reach a population of 7 billion, astronomically exceeding all of our cousin apes and thus becoming the greatest threat to their - and our - continuance on this planet.   One might wish that the evolution of our technological abilities had stopped at our cousin's termite-fishing and nut-cracking level. But it is too late. The genie has been uncorked. We need to find ways of harnessing the power technology...


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Aerial Surveillance - both from piloted aircraft and from unmanned aircraft - UAV's or drones can play and important role. Wildland Security is actively involved - especially  with quadrocopters - due to their hoverivng capabilities, ease of remotely piloting, and vertical takeoff and landing from virtually anywhere. There are, however a number of limitations of airborne observation. One, is similar to patrolling on foot, you are moving and so are the poachers you are trying to find.  Thus, your path and the poacher's path must intersect - and at the same time.  Therefore, detection...


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Laying an ambush for poachers remains one of the most effective means of capturing poachers. Rangers go out as a result of information from an informant or a TrailGuard report to a location they  expect to be able to reach in advance of the poacher.  And then they wait. And they may have a long wait - hours - perhaps days. And all the time they are waiting they must both remain ever-vigilant and  undetectable - silent. It is a dangerous undertaking. In Kenya several years ago, rangers had set up an ambush at the Tana River Bridge. Then they let there guard slip. The Somali shifta poachers,...


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The gulf oil disaster example     In the investigations following the BP Deepwater Horizon  Gulf Oil disaster, it was revealed that key alarm system had been intentionally disabled - by the management - because they did not want their sleep disturbed by possible false alarms. Every security system needs to anticipate the human element - that humans will -  through negligence, indifference, sabotage, etc - attempt to interfere with the operation any alarm/security system. There is no excuse that BP system tampering went undetected. Such tampering should have been anticipated,...


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