Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Judi Lynn

(160,217 posts)
Fri Mar 25, 2016, 04:56 PM Mar 2016

Faking Out Poachers With 3-D-Printed Sea Turtle Eggs

Faking Out Poachers With 3-D-Printed Sea Turtle Eggs

Conservationists hope to track the black market in eggs by tricking traders with artificial ones that contain wireless transmitters.

Mar 24, 2016

They come by night and they steal the future.

Every year, poachers in Nicaragua and other countries wait for cover of darkness and then make their way onto the beaches where endangered sea turtles have just laid their eggs. Working quickly, they dig up the precious eggs—hundreds at a time—and disappear. Some of the eggs turn up a few days later, priced as low as 20 cents apiece in local bars. Others travel thousands of miles to the United States or China, where they can sell for upwards of $150 each.

Exactly how the stolen eggs get from a beach in Nicaragua to a restaurant in Hong Kong remains unknown, frustrating efforts to combat the black market trade. A new project hopes to solve that.

The nonprofit Paso Pacifico is in the process of developing an innovative fake egg to help conservationists better understand—and maybe stop—the illegal trade. The eggs will contain a GSM transmitter hidden inside a 3-D-printed shell made to look exactly like what poachers would find within a fresh sea turtle nest. The fakes, each the size of a ping-pong ball, will then be tracked over cellular networks along their smuggling routes to their final destinations.

The project was one of the winners of the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge, organized by U.S. Aid for International Development, National Geographic, the Smithsonian Institution, and TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. Paso Pacifico and its partners received $10,000 and technical support from the challenge, which they are now using to perfect the prototype.

More:
http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/03/24/catching-poachers-fake-sea-turtle-eggs

2 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Faking Out Poachers With 3-D-Printed Sea Turtle Eggs (Original Post) Judi Lynn Mar 2016 OP
Who buys turtle eggs and why? Is this some rich asshole's "I only eat the endangered" diet? nt valerief Mar 2016 #1
Idiots who think those weird things will help their penises. MADem Mar 2016 #2

MADem

(135,425 posts)
2. Idiots who think those weird things will help their penises.
Fri Mar 25, 2016, 05:43 PM
Mar 2016

That's really what it comes down to--they should just take the frigging blue pill, and leave the turtles, tigers, bears, shark fins, and so forth, alone.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Environment & Energy»Faking Out Poachers With ...