Elephants Send SMS to Tell Where They Are

Cool, tracking elephants with collars that have cellphones with GSM/GPS.

This teasing story said that when elephants start to approach their fields, the farmers are alerted by SMS in time to politely ask the elephants to move over and save their crops. The whole story is told on the Save the Elephants (STE) site. In fact, these conservationists are putting GSM/GPS collars around elephants in some areas of Kenya. And the collared elephants are sending SMS messages directly to farmers' phones. You can even track individual elephants on the Web -- if you're an authorized user.

Ever since I saw the first critter cam I thought that they ought to put tracking devices on animals as well. I was thinking more for whale sharks so that dive boats know exactly where to go. But, elephants that works too. My concern would be that poachers could get a hold of the data as well, but hopefully they have figured out how to handle that as well.

via Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends via Engadget