Counting African elephants using satellites

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New technology helps elephants in Africa - 15th February 2021

A computer-based technique is helping conservationists monitor elephants in Africa. Scientists are excited about the approach, which uses photographs from a satellite 600 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.

The pictures show wild elephants in the forests of southern Africa. To the human eye, it just looks like a mass of grey and green shapes. However, a computer algorithm has been developed to read the images.

The algorithm enables a computer to pick out the elephants and count them. The technique was tried out first in the Addo National Elephant Park, South Africa.

The park was chosen due to both the high number of elephants in the area and its wide variety of forest habitats. A scientist from Oxford University, UK, Dr Isla Duporge said: ‘It’s a great place to test our approach.’

Across Africa, there are many conservationists who work to protect elephants. They say how difficult it is to find elephants in the wild and look after them. They are keen to start working with the new technology.

Although this new technology won’t be free to the conservationists, the information it provides will have a huge impact on their work. Some hope that it can reduce the number of elephants killed for their tusks.