Too many elephants? GPS collars help Zimbabwe villagers to avoid deadly encounters

In the dusty borderlands of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, a soundless conflict plays retired regular betwixt endurance and conservation. As clime alteration fuels longer drought periods and shrinks nutrient sources, elephants progressively stray into adjacent villages successful hunt of h2o and crops, which often person deadly consequences.To forestall these confrontations, a caller high-tech aboriginal informing strategy is combining outer information with old-fashioned assemblage grit. Whenever GPS-collared elephants attack the buffer zones that abstracted chaotic lands from quality settlements, section unpaid Capon Sibanda springs into action.“Every clip I aftermath up, I instrumentality my bike, I instrumentality my gadget and deed the road,” said Sibanda, 29, 1 of dozens of trained “community guardians” moving to support some radical and elephants harmless arsenic reported by AP.The GPS alert system, portion of an inaugural by Zimbabwe’s wildlife authorization and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), was introduced successful 2023. It uses real-time tracking and the EarthRanger level to show collared elephants, particularly matriarchs, a pistillate who is the caput of a family. Digital maps way movements and trigger alerts erstwhile animals transverse invisible reddish lines separating protected and assemblage lands.

This fusion of exertion and assemblage outreach has already begun to displacement the dynamic. “We inactive bang pans, but present we get warnings successful time,” says Senzeni Sibanda, a section husbandman and councilor.But the occupation is bigger than GPS tin hole alon...