It’s urgent. Unless stopped now, elephants and rhinos will be extinct in the wild by the time I have kids. Which won’t be thattt long, mom.

40,000 elephants and over 1,200 rhinos were killed by poachers in 2014—a rate that will lead both animals to extinction within 10 years if things don’t change. In the last half-dozen years there has been an exponential increase in the killing of these humble, majestic creatures. It’s getting worse and rangers are losing the war against poachers.

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The brains behind the brainstorm is the nonprofit organization, Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation and their program, Air Shepherd. Tests run by Nelson Mandela’s Peace Parks Foundation and UAV & Drone Solutions were so impressive and literally stopped poaching during trial runs…

They’re stopping poaching by putting drones out, and it’s working. From Treehugger:

They currently have an Indiegogo campaign running until April 11 to help secure more funding; specifically they are aiming for $500,000 to fund the daily operation of an existing drone team in South Africa for a full year. As they note, “You can literally help save these magnificent animals from extinction.”

And while the idea of drones patrolling the skies of Africa may seem surreal, the idea of a world without elephants and rhinos is even more so. If you can make a donation, click on over to the campaign; alternatively, simply sharing the news can help.

Source.