Your safari selfie could help rhino poachers
Poachers can use your geotagged safari photos to track down endangered animals.
Smartphone technology could be making it easier for wildlife poachers to find their next endangered prey.
A sign of our times. Makes me sad! pic.twitter.com/PoEnwFSHgE
— Eleni de Wet (@Eleni_dW) May 4, 2014
The above tweet posted by Eleni de Wet, the owner of a South African branding and advertising company, caused an internet stir not too long ago.
It appears the danger of poachers hunting down endangered species using geotagged photographs taken by safari tourists and shared on social media is a growing concern.
Geotagging adds geographical information, usually latitude and longitude coordinates to images and posts shared on social media sites.
On some social media sites, images are automatically geotagged without users even realizing they’ve broadcast their exact location to the world.
While there have been no confirmed cases of poachers using geotagged photos to track down their prey, this report from National Geographic about poachers trying to hack into the GPS data of a collar attached to a Bengal Tiger in India gives credence to conservationists’ concerns.
With more than 500 rhinos killed in South Africa so far this year, conservationists are urging safari tourists to turn off the geotagging function on their smartphones and digital cameras when snapping and sharing pictures of wildlife.
Watch the video below to learn how to turn off geotagging on your smartphone.
