Now hacking into tiger collar

Hackers seem to look for new challenges for various reasons. Now, in an unprecedented situation, a hacker from Pune had tried to hack into a radio collar placed around the neck of a tiger code named Panna-211. This tiger had been relocated from Panna to Satpura.

Taking cognisance of this incident, the Bori-Satpura tiger reserve authorities have filed an FIR to probe into the incident.

The radio collars have been designed to track the movements of the animals it is put on. It was not visualised that someone will hack into it to find out the details of the location. These information can be used to poach the animal.

Image of tigress with radio collar (antenna can be seen) is attached for representation only.

The inevitable has happened. Only solace is that the tiger is safe till now.

This claldestine work was being experimented, may be for commercial sale to poachers. Who knows ? Will the authorities take into account this factor during investigation? I do not know.

I do not know because when after the 'Evaporation of tiger in Panna' , I wrote at somewhere else for questioning the foreign researcher who was collaring Panna tigers for his project which I read in Jet Airways magazine 2 or 3 years earlier (about 8/9 years from now); I have no knowledge of what exactly happened. I think we have already lost 1 collared tiger (known data!).

We must impress upon the authorities that only very least number of tigers, may be man-killer (may not be man-eater) or those moving near Bangladesh border in the Sundarbans, may be collared; not all which are translocated as is being done now, when 'camera trap' is readily available.

The Statesman, Kolkata 20-Sept-2013 has reported that in the meeting between senior M. P wildlife officials and WII ', it was decided that that the Iridium collar on the tiger will be replaced by a new Very High Frequency (VHF) collar after it acclaimatises in the new environs of Satpura reserve.'

Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild