Web Design Ireland

Picked up an interesting / innovative use of SMS over on Yahoo News.

A bull elephant named “Kimani” in Kenya has been fitted with a mobile SMS chip which broadcasts an SMS text message when it approaches a specially designed “GeoFence”, developed using a global positioning system that mirrors the animal conservatory’s boundaries -alerting the rangers to the potential danger.

The race to save Kimani began two years ago. The Kenya Wildlife Service had already reluctantly shot five elephants from the conservancy who refused to stop crop-raiding, and Kimani was the last of the regular raiders. The Save the Elephants group wanted to see if he could break the habit.

The bull elephant had a long history of raiding villagers’ crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. But this time a mobile phone card inserted in his collar sent rangers a text message. Upon receiving the message rangers are able to respond and frighten the elephant back to the Ol Pejeta animal conservancy.

http://www.olpejetaconservancy.org
http://www.savetheelephants.org/