Additiol drones to eye Kaziranga

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, March 21: The Kaziranga tiol Park will witness use of more drones to protect the world famed one-horned rhinoceros from armed poachers in the future.

Kaziranga has already one drone and the State forest department is now planning to procure a few more drones to intensify day and night aerial surveillance to ensure safety of wildlife, particularly rhinos inside the park.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more popularly referred to as drones, are equipped with cameras to conduct aerial surveillance of a particular area. A drone is an aircraft without a human pilot and being increasingly used to monitor and protect wildlife.

Kaziranga had planned the use of drones in 2013 and a few trials were done, but the requisite clearances had not come from the Ministry of Defence till 2016. The park, with the highest tiger density and the highest rhino population in the country, had used the first drone in 2017. Two drones of Golaghat Police are now sometimes used for Kaziranga surveillance.

The new drones exclusively for Kaziranga will be equipped to take high-quality HD imageries which can be used for aerial mapping as well monitoring the movement of wildlife within and outside Kaziranga. The drones will have the capability of long distance aerial surveillance and could even be used to operate in forest conditions. The gadgets will be equipped to take both day and night pictures by flying up to a height of 200 feet continuously for more than an hour.

State Forest Minister Pramila Rani Brahma, when contacted, confirmed the development and told The Sentinel on Wednesday that procurement of few more drones will help the Kaziranga authority to effectively monitor movement of poachers inside and outside park. She said besides use of additiol drones, the department is planning to take more initiatives to improve the movement of field staff in the tural park.

Sources said tenders have already been floated to procure additiol drones and these are expected to fly in Kaziranga’s sky before the onset of monsoon this year.