In this feature-length News Item, Enviro-News is taking a look at how technology is being implemented into conservation efforts – specifically how it is being used in terms of endangered species.

An endangered species is defined as one limited in number to the extent that extinction is possible.  Many types of animal are considered ‘endangered’, but the word is often used generally when, in fact, different extensions of the term exist.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) publishes an annual Red List, tabulating thousands of animal species in terms of their population status.  This ranks them from those of least concern to those that are extinct, with near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered and extinct in the wild stages in between.

Animals on the 2008 endangered list include various gibbons, the Tasmanian devil and the Australian Sea Lion, while critically endangered animals include the Siberian tiger.

Endangered Species

The above cases represent instances of degradation, but, in some instances, the situation has improved – the African elephant (considered vulnerable in 2007, revised in 2008 to near threatened) and the Indian rhino (endangered in 2007, now vulnerable) being two examples.

In terms of protecting the African elephant, a number of schemes are currently up and running, including one in Namibia.  Here, efforts are underway to scientifically replicate elephants’ rumbles to each other, with a view to encouraging those that have left protected areas back in. Outside of their designated areas, elephants can incite farmers by damaging plantations.

Electronic Animal Surveillance

In Kenya, meanwhile, a highly innovative and unprecedented use of technology in the environment is taking place, namely elephant texting. 

This involves fitting elephants with collars, and then inserting SIM cards into these collars.  GPS is used to replicate these elephants’ actual physical environment and, when a particular elephant is close to leaving its area (and potentially heading for danger), the SIM card alerts rangers to its whereabouts.

Technology is also helping the Save the Elephants organisation, which has collaborated with Google Earth in order to follow the progress of the animals across Africa.

Meanwhile, in India, electronic surveillance is being used as a means of protecting tigers, while a handful of other projects around the globe are focusing on different subjects, such as giant pandas and pygmy hippos.

Beyond electronics, though, pure science is also being drawn upon, and causing a fair deal of controversy in the process.

Extinct Animal Cloning

The Spain/ France-dividing Pyrenees Mountains were once home to a particular breed of ibex, but gradually the sub-species began to disappear and the last Pyrenean ibex left the earth at the beginning of 2000.  The animal was, technically, extinct, but was subsequently brought back to life through cloning.  The subject died soon after, but it was an unprecedented achievement, although instances of endangered species cloning had already taken place.

The scientific stance is that cloning is one method through which genetic identity can be preserved and, thus, the genetic line carried on through breeding.   Those opposed to it, however, point out how such practice is not suitable for widespread species reintroduction.

Future Enviro-News coverage will focus on this area again, as new developments emerge and new marriages of technology and environment take place.