The Internet Can Now Protect Kenyan Cattle and Rhinos From Hungry Lions

(Bloomberg) -- A Kenyan conservation group has installed high-speed internet tracking to help guard cattle herds from hungry lions and eventually protect the East African nation’s dwindling rhino population.

Ol Pejeta Conservancy, about 148 kilometers (92 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi, is home to more than 110 black rhinos, 30 southern white rhinos and the world’s last two northern white rhinos.

Liquid Telecom Kenya Ltd. constructed a wildlife conservation laboratory for researchers at Ol Pejeta to protect about 6,000 cows from 60 lions at the conservancy, Liquid’s Chief Technical and Innovation Officer Ben Roberts said by phone.

Kenya is one of the continent’s prime destinations for wildlife safaris, part of a tourist industry that’s a linchpin of the economy and its biggest source of foreign exchange after remittances and agricultural exports. Attacks by predators on other animals and people have posed a challenge to authorities.

“We put up base stations all over the park for the sensors to be able to communicate with the network, ” Roberts said. “What we really want to achieve by tracking the cows is to alert when the lions are near the cattle herd.”

Kenya recorded 2.03 million visitors in 2018, 74% of who were holiday makers, and earned 157.4 billion shillings ($1.56 billion) from the industry.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Ombok in Nairobi at eombok@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Helen Nyambura, Michael Gunn

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