Air Wing

Slow flying, light aircraft are able to support conservation and, specifically, animal protection measures in a number of ways. These include basic surveillance; individual animal monitoring; day and night incident management and follow-up; vegetation monitoring and animal surveys. A Bantam aircraft has been purchased by LRF and made available to ARCC to be based from the ARCC airfield. A full time pilot will be housed in the APU Base with the salary, maintenance and a monthly supply of fuel donated by LRF.

A second aircraft, namely a Pipistrel Virus, with long range, variable speed and night flying capabilities, has also been offered. Negotiations are underway to base the aircraft at ARCC for use over the whole of the Eastern Cape. An initial quadcopter drones has been donated by Texas Christian University and commercial wholesalers are in discussion with the ARCC initiative..  They will be deployed with APUs for both animal monitoring and poaching incident follow-ups. The drones will also be used to monitor fence lines for breaches and to identify likely entry points into the reserves.