KOTTAYAM: The students from the department of Information Technology at the Amal Jyothi College of engineering have developed 'WildWatch', an integrated human wildlife conflict mitigation system, as part of their academic project which is currently used by the forest department for identifying the presence of wild animals at specific locations. This system consists of multiple modules comprising the early warning system identifying the presence of wild animals at a specific location, public SMS alert, staff monitoring and management, Fence integrity detection system and real-time monitoring, which work together to provide an efficient and effective conflict mitigation solution.
Through this system, users can identify the presence of wild animals, reptiles and adverse conditions. Right now the system is undergoing testing at the Pampa control room of the forest department. The control room centre is equipped at Pampa and there is a 24-hour monitoring at the control room. The 'Wild watch' app can be downloaded and the pictures of the animals can be sent. Once an alert is sent to the system using the android app, the control room staff can immediately get the information such as the location of the conflict, image, details regarding the time within 10 seconds.
"Right now the users were limited to forest department officials, motor vehicle department officials and Travancore Devaswom Board officials which will be expanded to the general public later on," Forest range officer at Pampa M Ajeesh told DC. The system will help the forest department to take quick action. This alert will also send early warning lights placed at various control rooms of the forest department to indicate danger. The alert will also be sent to the registered users as SMS notifications. The system has been developed by fourth year B.Tech IT students of the Amal Jyothi College comprising Abhishek Krishnan, Jesil Jose, Merin Yohannan, Shema Elizabeth John and third year IT student of the College Biby Chacko.
