There are no boundaries to technology these days, and as strange as it may sound, even elephants heard of text messaging. It’s true, elephants in Kenya are the first among their kind to send text messages to rangers, oddly enough, to announce them they are heading for villagers’ crops.

The method of implementing a SIM Card into the elephants’ collars was meant as an alternative to shooting the animals in order to stop them from destroying the crops that farmers highly depend on in Kenya.

The SIM-equipped collars work like a GPS system, warning the rangers every time an animal heads for any of the crops. This way, people and elephants can make pace: villagers will no longer lose their crops, and elephants will not longer have to be shot.

The project is very ample and difficult at the same time: while still in experimental phase, the project, in collaboration with the Fauna & Flora International conservation organization, promises to save the lives of the elephants in the Ol Pejeta conservancy.

FFI explained that this technology will not only help researchers track the elephants with greater precision, but it will also allow for their unwanted behavior, such as breaking the fences of the conservancy, to be prevented.

This is not the first project of this kind: in the previous pilot experiment, it created an effective communication line between wildlife authorities and rangers. By being able to make the necessary repairs on the fence on time, killing the elephants and dealing with destroyed crops could be avoided.