Spanish IoT firm Sateliot is creating an internet of vultures in southern Africa to help safeguard the endangered species.

Working with the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), the company is using 5G IoT satellites and offering free connections to NGOs, including EWT, which is pioneering its Eye in the Sky wildlife tracking technology to monitor and save endangered species across Africa.

Sateliot, which operates a low-Earth orbit (LEO) 5G IoT satellite constellation, and EWT, the South African NGO in its 50th year of operations, agreed to deploy 5G IoT sensors on vultures, a step towards safeguarding endangered species and combating poaching in Africa. 

Sateliot’s collaboration with NGOs extends 5G satellite coverage to the organisations. This extension is seamlessly facilitated through standard roaming with existing mobile network operators (MNOs), eliminating the need for additional satellite user equipment. NGOs can now leverage the same terrestrial standard used by mobile operators to expand their operational reach. 

Access to connectivity for IoT in remote areas has remained a big challenge, especially in the large expanses of water and land where most of the Earth’s biodiversity is located. Numerous animals and plant species live here, some under significant pressure and endangerment.

With this agreement, EWT will benefit from global connectivity at no extra costs, enabling massive deployments of IoT devices and improving its current operations.

Illegal trade has seen thousands of vultures poisoned across Africa, devastating populations and driving them rapidly towards extinction in the wild. Scavenging mammals, including lions, hyaenas and leopards, are also severely impacted by poisoning. A key factor limiting the capacity to reduce or avoid the large loss of wildlife to poisoning is the ability to locate and respond quickly to poisoning events. The early detection of a poison source and the decontamination of a poisoning scene radically reduce the further loss of wildlife. Fast action also allows response teams to save surviving wildlife.

To address this threat in southern and east Africa, the EWT has harnessed the natural sentinel and foraging behaviour of vultures and coupled this with GPS-tracking technology, developing a rapid poisoning detection system, called Eye in the Sky. This closely monitors the behavioural signatures in GPS-tracked vultures to detect remotely the presence of poison sources and feeding events associated with potentially poisoned-laced carcasses. Using this rapid detection system, the EWT (ewt.org.za) has already started to reduce the impact of wildlife poisoning in southern Africa significantly.

Presently covering approximately 15 million square kilometres with over 380 vultures of five different species, the Eye in the Sky monitors the birds through EarthRanger software. The GPS-equipped birds send alerts to various front-end platforms, enabling rapid response teams across Africa to react swiftly to poisoning events.

In the past year, this system has identified 15 poisoning events. The quick response allowed teams to rescue over 100 highly threatened vultures, swiftly eliminate the poison sources and decontaminate the scenes, ultimately saving lives.

“Sateliot’s support will significantly impact our organisation,” said Alison Janicke, EWT’s head of business development. “This financial relief will enable us to allocate these funds to other critical conservation work. Beyond the monetary savings, partnering with Sateliot will also spare us some time and effort spent on fundraising, allowing us to invest that time in on-the-ground conservation activities.”

Gianluca Redolfi, CCO at Sateliot (sateliot.space), envisions a future where satellite connectivity changes how NGOs engage in conservation efforts.

“By harnessing Sateliot’s advanced capacity allocation techniques, NGOs can tap into free satellite capacity during specific time slots and locations at no extra cost,” said Redolfi.