Park Rangers Are Using Silent Ebikes to Catch Poachers

At the end of the year, a group of night prowlers in a national park in Africa were stunned by a torchlight. The area's savannahs, forests, and wetlands are often used by local opportunists to kill hundreds of animals in a single hunt. They move with confidence because they can hear the noisy petrol motorbikes of the overstretched rangers from more than a mile away, enabling them not only to escape, but also to know where the park's guardian are and hunt around them.

This time, not. The hunt was stopped by a team of rangers on their bikes. The quiet motor of the ebike is a factor that can make them an accident risk in the busy city.

The petrol bikes we have used before have been loud, heavy, and expensive to maintain. Mfana Xaba, leader of the anti-poaching team at the Southern African Wildlife College, says that the quiet bikes make it easier to approach people who are trying to kill rhinos. The one in Mozambique is one of the parks it supplies. For fear of compromising the mission, the locations where they are using the bikes are being kept secret.

Poachers have stopped several attempts to kill animals, including tiny antelopes, red duikers, and blue duikers, which are used for bush meat. Alan Gardiner is an ecology professor and head of the Applied Learning Unit at SAWC. uni and the other small antelope form prey items for many predator such as leopards, crowned eagles, and pythons It has a knock-on effect when any species is affected.

Fifty Kalk Anti-Poaching bikes, made by the Swedish company CAKE, will now be used across SAWC's African parks. The previous petrol bikes were problematic and not just because of the noise. The petrol to power them has to be brought in using trucks or even helicopter. As you have to store gas in the jungle, the petrol can be stolen.

When the college realized the quiet, durable bike could be revolutionary in Africa, they decided to partner with CAKE. The AP was sent to Africa after some tweaking. It can reach speeds of 56 miles per hour and can take around five hours to complete. CAKE switched its standard tires for 18-inch off-road tires like the ones used in motocross and provided a software system to retrieve vehicle data and continue to monitor and improve each bike's performance.