EarthRanger
Free real-time platform for monitoring protected areas and wildlife operations
About
EarthRanger unifies data from GPS wildlife collars, ranger patrols, vehicles, camera traps, drones, and satellite imagery into one real-time operational map for protected-area managers. It provides instant alerts for geofence crossings, immobility, and unusual animal movements, plus heatmaps and time-series playback for analysis. A peer-reviewed paper reports deployment at over 500 sites across 70 countries, with one African Parks deployment linked to removal of 50,000+ snares; the software itself is free, though hardware and connectivity in the field are the real costs.
What it can do
- Real-time unified map of wildlife, rangers, and assets
- Instant SMS, WhatsApp, and email alerts for critical events
- Mobile app for GPS tracking and field observations
- Integration with SMART, CyberTracker, and 100+ device types
- Historical playback, heatmaps, and reporting
Setup
- Register your organization for an EarthRanger site through the EarthRanger team
- Connect data sources: collars, vehicles, radios, camera traps, or SMART systems
- Configure geofences, event types, and alert rules in the web admin
- Install the EarthRanger Mobile app for field data collection and patrol tracking
- Monitor the live map in the operations center and respond to automated alerts
Prerequisites
An approved organization account and EarthRanger site; internet-connected operations center
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: Verified via official earthranger.com FAQs and a peer-reviewed DOAJ paper (2024) today.; Free software from Ai2 (Allen Institute for AI); 500+ sites across 70 countries per peer-reviewed paper; open-source components.; Deployment outcomes (snare removals, poaching reduction) are per-deployment results, not guarantees of the software alone.. License: Software free of charge; field hardware, connectivity, and operations costs are separate..
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 9.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 8.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 9.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · Verified via official earthranger.com FAQs and a peer-reviewed DOAJ paper (2024) today.
- · Free software from Ai2 (Allen Institute for AI); 500+ sites across 70 countries per peer-reviewed paper; open-source components.
- · Deployment outcomes (snare removals, poaching reduction) are per-deployment results, not guarantees of the software alone.
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.