From the WashingtonPost. Blog by Matt McFarland.

When the World Wildlife Fund wanted to figure how to stop wildlife poaching, they went to Google for help. Soon WWF researchers were testing technology using a thermal camera to identify poachers in a rural Maryland cow pasture.

Thermal cameras can identify humans and trigger automated alerts to nearby park rangers when suspected poachers cross into parks.

WWF hopes the technology can make it affordable to monitor miles of roads in East Africa, and solve the growing poaching problem.

How much worse has poaching become in Africa? In South Africa, for example, from 1980 to 2007 an average of nine rhinos were poached per year. That number skyrocketed to 1,215 in 2014. The population of forest elephants in Central Africa declined 62 percent from 2002 to 2011.

“We’re trying to take the human out of the loop,” said Eric Becker, an engineer at the World Wildlife Fund. “We looked at every technology that exists. This may sound expensive but compared to the others it’s a fraction of the cost.”

The $7,000 thermal cameras were chosen over drones, buried fiber optics, seismic technology and radar systems. The work is being funded by a grant from Google’s Global Impact Award.

The plan is to mount the cameras on poles along roadways. A small computer attached to the camera will run software that identifies moving objects and classifies them. Solar panels will power the cameras and computer. If a human walks into a park, the camera can recognize the movement and send a text message or email to park rangers via radio signals.

The team tested their approach earlier this year in Africa.