The Handspring
Foundation has donated 25 Visor Deluxe
handhelds to support the conservation, awareness,
tracking and protection of the Sumatran Rhinoceros,
of which there are only 300 left in the wild and
three in the United States in captivity. It is the
only organization in Borneo that is trying to locate
and protect this last population of rhinos. SOS Rhino
is using the Visors to track the Sumatran Rhinoceros.
In May and June, Dr.
Annelisa Kilbourn traveled to Gabon to start a
gorilla health evaluation and
monitoring program and work with multiple
non-governmental organizations to develop human and
animal disease transmission prevention protocols
associated with gorilla habitats.
"Although the
African gorilla's relevance to the Sumatran rhino may
not be obvious, if one spends a few days on the
project, the connection becomes clear," says
Kilbourn. Having learned skills and novel
technologies from park managers and experienced
rangers, Dr. Kilbourn can now transfer techniques
gained in the forests of Africa to Asia, where she
studies the Sumatran rhino.
In Gabon's capital,
Dr. Kilbourn met with Jean-Marc Froment and Conrad
Aveling from ECOFAC, which helps manage several
wildlife-protected areas in Gabon and Congo, to
discuss feasibility, logistics, and participants. The
ECOFAC team was very interested in promoting the
development of the gorilla program. Dr. Kilbourn also
conducted several site visits at Odzala, in the
Congo, to meet with field researchers and
participating eco-guards to discuss bilingual
field-friendly sample and data-collection protocols
for trial evaluation. The group agreed on the data to
be collected, location, and participants. They also
agreed to integrate this information electronically
into handheld computers called the Palm or Visor,
which are used by patrol units and researchers. The
software is called CyberTracker.
CyberTracker software
on handheld computers allows the group in the field
to enter data as they observe animals in the field.
The point is to make tracking as universal and exact
as possible. When trackers see an elephant, all they
have to do is turn on their handheld device, enter
their ID, and click on a picture of an elephant. An
attachment called a GPS, or global positioning
system, records the latitude and longitude of the
animal observed. The collected data can then be
exported into an Excel spreadsheet for further
analysis.
In Odzala, the
CyberTracker pilot project collected more than 35,000
observations in the first 18 months.
Kilbourn obtained a
grant from the Handspring Foundation so that the
staff of SOS Rhino in Borneo can use the new
technology to track Sumatran rhinos at the Tabin
wildlife preserve.
http://www.sosrhino.org/research/congo.php
http://www.handspring.com/company/pr/pr_grants_121701.jhtml