African bushmen are being given computers so they can use their skill at tracking wild animals to take part in a project that will help conservation and tourism.
The project is being run by Louis Liebenberg, a South African tracking expert, who has teamed up with Lindsay Steventon, a computer expert. They are equipping bushmen with handheld PalmPilot computers so they can record sightings of animals in the wild. The computers, known as Cyber Trackers, can then be taken to a base and the information down loaded onto a PC.
The project will create a remarkable database for scientists, who will have wildlife information c6llated throughout the year by bushmen whose knowledge of local animals is unrivalled.
To make the system easy to use for the largely illiterate bushmen, each type of animal is given a screen icon that cone spends to its appearance. Different breeds of the same animal are stored as sub menus, again using icons to note their distinguishing features.
Once an animal is spotted and its icon is pressed, the tracker can make further observations about the creature. Option include the pace at which it is moving, what it is eating, whether it is fighting or sleeping, the condition of its droppings and its apparent state of health.
If only the tracks of an animal are spotted, the bushmen can enter details of the species and which direction it was moving in. This may lead to later sightings and additional data. When an entry is to be committed to the PalmPilot’s memory, the bushman presses a button and a GPS receiver stamps a position on the data. To ensure accuracy the tracker has to estimate how far away the animal is so its position and not his is recorded.
The bushmen will also use the PalmPilots to record water levels and how plants are faring. Fluctuations in either can harm animal populations.
When the PalmPilot is attached to a base PC, the sightings can be downloaded and displayed on its screen as lines showing the movement and behaviour of individual animals as well as groups. This allows movement and feeding patterns to be examined.
Liebenberg hopes that as well as building a useful research tool these maps will give guidance on where tourists should be taken to optimise their chances of seeing elusive animals such as leopards and rhinos.
"A tracker could check on the PC where the latest sightings have been recorded and get a good idea where the best place would be to take tourists, "he says. "It could mean that instead of having to pay for three days in the bush, tourists need only budget for two days. "
The system is now being tested on a small scale but Liebenberg says that it has already given more insight into changes in the feeding patterns of the desert species of the endangered black rhino.
"What happened before was that a scientist would come down from a university for a few days a year, make some observations and that would be it -- the total knowledge of rhino eating patterns," he says, "With the Cyber Tracker the bushmen were able to log where the rhinos were, what they were eating, and how much of that food was left. We found the rhinos change food every couple of months as a new type of plant flourishes. It was always assumed they ate the same sorts of leaves and grass after the end of the dry season."
"This has huge implications for rhino populations because the trackers’data can show which other animals are eating what the rhinos feed on. In this case it was kudu, a common type of antelope, which is often served in restaurants. In future, the park ranger will be able to look at the rhino population and what they are eating and , if there are too many kudu in the area, he can cull some so there is less competition for food. It may sound harsh, but kudu are common and this relative of the black rhino is not, so you don’t want them to start losing condition. '
Steventon, w

A. The direction in which an animal is moving.
B. The black market value of an animal’s skin.
C. Fluctuations in water levels.
D. The apparent state of an animal’s health.