An elephant with the LoRaWAN collar on. (Bouman, Ariet. “First LoRaWAN® Elephant Collars Successfully Deployed in the Central Tuli GameReserve.”SmartParks,23Sept.2021,www.smartparks.org/news/first-lorawan-elephant-collars-successfully-deployed-in-the-central-tuli-game-reserve/)

Writer:  Charlotte Leung

Today, there is nearly no such thing as “getting lost.”At the click of a button, whether on Google Maps or Waze, you get instant access to the fastest routes to go home, work, or essentially any place you can imagine on the planet. 

Well, what if this applied to animals, where people can help guide them to safety when  they get a little too close to a place of danger?

Last year, the World Wildlife Fund launched a new way of tracking animals, more specifically, our beloved elephants. LoRaWAN, or Long Range, Wide Area Network, is a technology that is put into elephant collars.

Previously, elephant collars have been quite the hassle. They were heavy for elephants to wear, could only track the elephant for a few times a day, and only had 1-2 years of lifespan in the battery. In contrast, LoRaWAN’s tracking updates every five minutes, are lighter, and has a battery life of up to 7 years. Not only that, but unlike the typical satellite tracking system used before, LoRaWAN uses a private communications system to track elephants, meaning  it has its own physical infrastructure.

So, the project began with the construction of three gateway-equipped towers, acting as the wifi routers that would locate the elephants. These towers cover large parts of Karfue National Park and nearby communities and areas. These towers allowed short messages to be sent at a distance of over 12 miles, in a battery-conserving manner. 

The brand new collar technology was then tested out by 10 orphaned elephants, who have all lost their mothers to illegal poaching in their natural habitats. They were all rescued by Game Rangers International’s elephant rescue and release facility within Kafue National Park. As the calves began to prepare to re-enter the grasslands, the facility has allowed them to spend less and less time confined, and more time outside. Using the new collars, the rescue team hope to allow the elephant calves to roam free safely, where rangers could see if they are getting too close to residential communities. The calves would then return at night, where engineer specialists were able to troubleshoot any problems that occurred during the day.

As for right now, Game Rangers International are tracking elephants using their technology. However, they are assessing various parts of their invention, hoping the tracking mechanism can be used on a variety of different wild species.

A special shout-out to the talented engineering specialists and the rescue facility for keeping elephants and other wildlife animals safe!

Works Cited

Bouman, Ariet. “First LoRaWAN® Elephant Collars Successfully Deployed in the Central Tuli Game Reserve.” Smart Parks, 23 Sept. 2021, www.smartparks.org/news/first-lorawan-elephant-collars-successfully-deployed-in-the-central-tuli-game-reserve/

Kent, Whitney. “WWF Uses New Wireless Technology to Track Elephants.” World Wildlife Fund, 4 Jan. 2024, www.worldwildlife.org/stories/wwf-uses-new-wireless-technology-to-track-elephants.