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Second Tiger Cub Dies in Crimea Zoo After Blackout

Sofia Tereshchenko

7 December 2015 10:31pm

Not really sure the death of a rare (endangered) second Bengal Tiger cub, because of the technological catastrophe on Crimean peninsula, is the right...

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Stephanie O'Donnell

8 December 2015 12:11pm

Hi Sofia, 

While there is a argument that the death of Bengal Tigers at a zoo in Crimea could potentially be viewed wildlife crime, your original post was unclear about how this was relevant to a professional community that is focused on collaborating and sharing ideas about conservation technology. I would argue that technological innovation might not be the most important element for finding a solution to the problem you have identified. Rather, there are political, social and economic factors that must be addressed as a higher priority, and if addressed effectively, will negate the need for a complex technological solution to this issue.

That being said, I welcome any community member who might be interested to continue the discussion below. 

Cheers, 

Stephanie

 

 

Sofia Tereshchenko

8 December 2015 12:42pm

Hi, Stephanie

"WILDLABS.NET is a community of conservationists, technologists, engineers, data scientists, entrepreneurs and change makers. Together, we share information, ideas, tools and resources to discover and implement technology-enabled solutions to some of the biggest conservation challenges facing our planet. Join the Community to share your knowledge, explore ongoing projects, ask questions and identify major questions and needs. This community is a centralised space for field based conservationists to connect directly with technology experts, to share their challenges and source new ideas for solutions. Connecting with users on the ground will help technologists and innovators to test ideas in field environments, and adapt systems that can accelerate conservation gains. The problems faced by our planet cannot be solved by people working in silos. Become part of theCommunity and work together to build the solutions." (from WILDLABS.NET front page)

Bengal tigers (especially white ones) are identified as endangered species. Blackouts can happen anywhere.. So, as this is a community based on technological solutions, discussions, and sharing ideas and collaborating, I believed someone could have an idea about what can we, as conservationists, do, in order to prevent such loses of endangered species in the zoos, in the future. I'm less interested in politics when it concerns the lives of innocent animals suffering from imperfect conditions in the zoos etc. Any loss of endangered species, anywhere in the world, is a wildlife crime, because we can not afford to let our children live in the world where there's no elephants, rhinos or bengal tigers etc.

On the contrary, this is exactly what I've been saying, that technological innovations (ideas, projects) are exactly what could we all seriously regard in order to solve such problem that happened to the animals in the Crimean zoo. For example, zoos areas could have better equipment with alternative energy generators, or some innovative energy generators. In case of a blackout for example (man-made, natural, technological), in some country for example, it immediately puts at risk the zoos |and the safety and security of its animals|(and not only, but here we discuss environmental issues), for example if it's a cold country: Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Canada etc, on my opinion, I think it would be better if the zoos be equipped with alternative power generators. So, if anyone in the community, have an idea what kind of innovations could be used for the zoos (all over the world) I would be happy to read.

Thank you,

With love,

Sofia

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discussion

wildtech.mongabay.com is a great resource

Dave Cortright

2 December 2015 10:40pm

I just wanted to plug Monga Bay's WildTech area of their site. It's a great resource for information highly relevant to the topics in this forum. Just today there was a...

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Stephanie O'Donnell

3 December 2015 2:19pm

Thanks for the link - yes, I agree Mongabay's WildTech areas is a great resource for anyone interested in keeping up to date with the latest conservation tech news. Sue Palminteri's article is facinating and is definitely worth a read. The video showing the daily movement of elephants is particularly interesting (see the screenshot below) - it was a case study Katherine Chou of Google.org spoke about in her Fuller Symposium address as well. That they're getting close to real time monitoring is very exciting - it would have been amazing to have that capacity in other projects I've been involved with. 

The key take-aways you highlight match a lot of what came up in the Fuller Symposium and other discussions about HWC. The consensus from Wired in the Wild - Can technology save the planet?   was that no, it cannot. It is simply a very useful tool that, when used appropriately, could have significant impacts in the challenges conservation is attempting to tackle. Numerous speakers drove home the point that technology is not and should not be the starting point; we need to be technology agnostic. We must start by understanding the challenge and then looking at what (if any) technology might help to address it given the circumstances. 

The Elephants and Bees approach is a great example of why we need to start with challenge rather than the technology. Sometimes the best solution is the low tech approach. Nilanga Jayasinghe highlighed this in her thought piece about HWC - giving a similar example of work WWF is doing in Nepal: 

'During a recent visit to Nepal, I visited rural villages where wild elephants often raid rice fields during harvest season. The communities had installed electric fences but this tool didn't always succeed on its own. Elephants are smart and persistent: they had learned to break the fence’s electric current, and then the fence itself, by using trees to push over the supporting stakes. To solve this problem, we worked with farmers to dig fish ponds in front of the fences as an additional obstacle. Adding an additional barrier not only made it harder for the elephants to get into the fields, it also gave the communities more time to respond and drive elephants away. This simple solution has not only reduced elephant raids, but has also improved local livelihoods from the sale of the fish grown in the ponds.' 

 

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