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How South Africans are using high-tech to rewrite the rules of wildlife conservation

Daily Maverick · 🇿🇦 public South Africa · · 1964 words · By Tony Carnie
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What to know about How South Africans are using high-tech to rewrite the rules of wildlife conservation

Whether it’s tracking down rhino poachers at night, pinpointing the nests of endangered vultures or shepherding crop-raiding elephants away from farmers’ fields, South Africans are taking full advantage of advanced AI technology, drones and thermal imaging in…

Claims checked 18
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center86%
Right14%

7 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Whether it’s tracking down rhino poachers at night, pinpointing the nests of endangered vultures or shepherding crop-raiding elephants away from farmers’ fields, South Africans are taking full advantage of advanced AI technology, drones and thermal imaging in…

Why it matters

Last year, South Africa-born conservationist and safari company owner Carel Verhoef deployed a small fleet of drones and ranger pilots to move a herd of 150 elephants — at night, for 70km — near the border between Tanzania and Kenya.

Common ground

He has also used drones to “buzz” predatory lions away from Maasai cattle bomas.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-03-29-how-south-africans-are-using-…

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 18 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

schedule Pending 8
help Insufficient Evidence 7
verified Verified By Reference 3
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Claim 1: “Drones in Project Gaia provided higher-resolution images than satellites for wildlife census.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
verified
Claim 2: “Willem Kellermann and his team completed a major drone-based wildlife census covering more than 100,000 hectares in several private game reserves near Kruger National Park.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Cited Wikipedia sources reference historical decades and film lists, showing no connection to drone-based wildlife censuses.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 1880s (pronounced "eighteen-eighties") was the decade that began on January 1, 1880, and ended on December 31, 1889. The period was characterized in general by economic growth and prosperity in ma…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1880s
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of American films released in 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2000
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Claim 3: “Drones are more cost-effective than helicopters, light aircraft, or ground vehicles for elephant relocation.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 4: “Drones were used to drive lions away from cattle bomas by creating persistent noise.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
verified
Claim 5: “South Africans are taking full advantage of advanced AI technology, drones and thermal imaging in conservation management projects across Africa.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
All cited Wikipedia sources are unrelated to conservation technology. No evidence connects South African conservation projects to AI, drones, or thermal imaging.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — GoTyme Bank (formerly TymeBank, and incorporated as TymeBank Limited ) is a South African digital-only bank aimed at the lower income market. Headquartered in Johannesburg, Gauteng, the company was fo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoTyme_Bank_(South_Africa)
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Grok is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI. It was launched in November 2023 by Elon Musk as an initiative based on the large language model (LLM) of the same name. Grok has…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok_(chatbot)
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — South African National Parks (SANParks) is the body responsible for managing South Africa's national parks. SANParks was formed in 1926, and currently manages 19 parks consisting of 37,511.13 km2 (14,…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_National_Parks
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Claim 6: “Kazi ya Tembo pilots use two drones and modified propellers to handle stubborn elephants.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
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Claim 7: “Project Gaia used AI, computer vision, and machine learning to identify and map over 50 wildlife species from 3 million images.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 8: “Drones in Project Gaia were equipped with five lenses to capture images in four cardinal directions and a plan view.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 9: “Anti-poaching teams in Hluhluwe/iMfolozi Park use drones, AI, and thermal imaging cameras to track armed poachers at night.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results to confirm anti-poaching drone operations in Hluhluwe/iMfolozi Park.
help
Claim 10: “Verhoef and his teams use high-pitched drone sounds to shepherd crop-raiding elephants toward national parks.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results to support drone sound-based elephant herding methods.
help
Claim 11: “Kellermann’s team captured nearly three million high-resolution images using machine-learning technology and Nvidia GPUs to identify over 50 wildlife species.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results to support the drone census claims.
help
Claim 12: “Dr. Debbie Jewitt qualified as a Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone pilot nearly a decade ago.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results to verify Debbie Jewitt's BVLOS drone pilot qualifications.
schedule
Claim 13: “Project Gaia's census method is more accurate and less disruptive than traditional manned aircraft surveys.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 14: “Kazi ya Tembo moved over 150 elephants 70km over five days and nights using drones, Conservation Through Tourism, and Tanzania National Parks Authority.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results to confirm Kazi ya Tembo's elephant relocation statistics.
help
Claim 15: “Kazi ya Tembo conducted more than 2,000 drone flights and over 1,300 emergency call-outs, with 1,600 successful elephant relocations.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results to verify Kazi ya Tembo's drone flight and relocation statistics.
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Claim 16: “Kazi ya Tembo occasionally uses pepper spray and flashing lights to disperse elephants.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 17: “The Kazi ya Tembo project uses drones and thermal imaging to reduce human-wildlife conflict in Tanzania.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in Wikipedia or web search results to confirm Kazi ya Tembo's use of drones for human-wildlife conflict reduction.
verified
Claim 18: “Carel Verhoef deployed a small fleet of drones and ranger pilots to move a herd of 150 elephants — at night, for 70km — near the border between Tanzania and Kenya.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Cited Wikipedia sources discuss Afrikaans language and marine invertebrates, which are unrelated to elephant relocation efforts.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Afrikaans is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia, and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and also Argentina, where a group in Sarmiento speaks a Patagonian dialect. It…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The list of marine invertebrates of the Cape Peninsula and False Bay is a list of marine and shore-based invertebrate animal species that form a part of the fauna of South Africa and that have been re…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_marine_invertebrates_o…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.