Researchers in America have developed an algorithm that can detect wildlife poachers in ‘near real-time’.

The team from the University of Southern California has tailored the tech to enable those patrolling for poachers to pinpoint the criminals more easily, using a feed on their laptop, which comes from the drones that monitor national parks in Zimbabwe and Malawi.

Labelled SPOT – Systematic POacher deTector – the algorithm takes around three-tenths of a second to confirm poachers and animals.

“SPOT will ease the burden on those using drones for anti-poaching by automatically detecting people and animals in infrared imagery, and by providing detections in near real time,” saids lead author Elizabeth Bondi, a PhD candidate in computer science at USC.