discussion / Human-Wildlife Conflict  / 30 June 2017

HWC Tech Challenge - Tiger Case

Join the Human Wildlife Conflict Tech Challenge!

In the past four years, 101 people have lost their lives to tigers in India alone. You can help prevent this. 

WWF and WILDLABS challenge you to develop a new, or improved, technology tool to reduce such interactions between humans and carnivores like tigers and polar bears. The winning solution will receive a prize of up to 30,000 EUR. With this prize, you will refine your solution and field test it with the support of WWF's landscape teams.

The Challenge

Develop / improve a robust early detection tool for tigers, that can cope with a wet and dry tropical environment as well as snowy conditions, low and high elevations and difficult terrain, is affordable at a local level, is easily accessible and operated, and requires little maintenance.

Why an Early Detection Tool? 

An early detection tool would give people the time to respond effectively to an approaching tiger. They are no longer surprised by an encounter and will have more time to choose the best response in order to prevent escalation into conflict, and thus stay safe. There are no known technological early warning systems currently in place to detect tiger presence.

Ready to develop your idea?

If you have an idea that could address this challenge, make sure you visit our detailed HWC Tech Challenge Tiger Case. It's packed full of background information about the challenge, local conditions, present solutions, and suggested but not yet developed solutions for early warning systems for tigers. In essence, all the information you need to inform your tool design process. 

If you have questions about the tiger case, require more information, or have an idea but need collaborators, this is the place for you! Post a reply below and we'll make sure you get the information you need. 

 

 




Hi Stephanie, 

Are there any cases in which tigers are already being tracked through GPS? Is tagging and tracking a feasible first step?

Fired up about this, 

Claire 

Hi Claire,

Willdife tracking is already used on a large scale in numerous parks and protected areas. This is doene through either GPS/GSM/Satellite collars. Some people have developed means to identify tigers based on their stripe pattern. However, there is a known hacking attempt of a GPS collar. So for monitoring tigers, these collars are some of the best solutions. Although most risks come from equipment issues, hacking into data like this is a unique case.

 

Regards,

John 

Hi all,

did you already used camera traps on this challenge fields to capture tigers photos ? If yes, how many photos do you have ? Are they available for the challengers ?

Regards.

Gwen

Hi Gwen,

Yes, automatic cameratraps are used more and more often to monitor tiger populations. We have access to several of them. I suggest to submit your idea / concept as a proposal to the HWC TechChallenge- your idea on how cameratrap pictures can help in early detection is of most interest to us. Let me know if you definitely need a sample picture to develop your proposal! Note that several cameratrap pictures of tigers appear on publilc websites- maybe you could make use of those?

Gert