WILDTRACK FOUNDERS TO SPEAK AT MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCES
Conservationists combine ancient skills with new technology
October 30 , 2007
RALEIGH – How did software developed by Cary-based SAS Institute help save the endangered black rhino? Discover the answer at a multimedia presentation by zoologist Sky Alibhai and veterinarian Zoe Jewell at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh on Saturday, November 10 at 2 p.m. Free.
In 1992, Alibhai and Jewell founded RhinoWatch, a research program for counting and monitoring black rhino in Zimbabwe. For the next several years they investigated the effects of invasive monitoring (capturing and collaring) on this population and discovered that it was actually harming the already endangered rhino’s fertility rates.
In response, the two conservationists developed a non-invasive Footprint Identification Technique (FIT), which combined the ancient skill of tracking with the high-tech world of digital imagery and databases. Alibhai and Jewell culled detailed knowledge of wildlife signs from indigenous trackers, game scouts and other wildlife professionals, and in turn trained them to take images of paw and hoof prints as part of their field work.
These images are then added to a database that, with the help of analytical software developed by SAS and JMP (a business unit of SAS), accurately identifies and counts individuals in a given area using biometrics. Heel lines for example, are as distinctive to rhinos as are the whorls in a human fingerprint. The resulting data is critical to the implementation of strategies for protection and management of endangered species, and has already helped save the black rhino population in Zimbabwe. Alibhai and Jewell’s work was awarded the Smithsonian Computerworld award in the Environment, Energy and Agriculture category in 2002.
Interest expressed by researchers of other endangered species led to an expansion of the work in 2004, and therefore to renaming RhinoWatch to WildTrack. Now WildTrack is working to develop the first endangered species footprint database. Projects include the world’s most endangered black rhino subspecies, living in Cameroon; the most endangered of all rhinoceros species, the Sumatran rhino in Borneo; the lowland tapir in Argentina; polar bears in northern Canada; the Bengal tiger in India and Bangladesh; and the most endangered large cat in the world, the Iberian lynx in Spain and Portugal.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, in downtown Raleigh, documents and interprets the natural history of the state of North Carolina through exhibits, research, collections, publications, and educational programming. Hours: Mon.-Sat., 9 am to 5 pm, and Sun., noon to 5 pm. Admission is free. Visit the Museum on the Web at naturalsciences.org. The Museum is an agency of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, William G. Ross Jr., Secretary.
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