May 1, 2015 was the day the Obama administration announced the Department of Justice (DOJ) would provide $20 million in grants to local police departments to buy body cameras for officers. Demand for police body cameras rose due to the outcry of civil rights activists over a series of violent and, in some cases, deadly altercations between police and unarmed citizens under questionable circumstances.

Now in an effort to curb a different kind of violence, another group of activists has turned to cameras as the answer. A team of British conservationists have developed a system to save endangered species such as rhinos, which are hunted by poachers for their horns. The system called RAPID (standing for Real-time Anti-Poaching Intelligence Device), created by non-profit group Protect, uses a combination GPS trackers, heart rate monitors and “body camera” inserted (painlessly) into the horns of the rhinos.

According to the Independent, there are about 25,000 wild rhinos worldwide, with 80 percent of them in South Africa. And, via South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs, Rhino poaching has increased from 13 animals in 2007 to 1,215 in 2014. It’s estimated that several species of rhinos could go extinct within the next decade if nothing is done about the issue.

Teams of anti poaching wildlife rangers already exist, but have no way of knowing when and where the poachers are striking. RAPID was created to solve this gap. Using the  heart-rate monitor attached to the rhino, operators at a control station will receive an alert triggered by the animals rapidly changing heart rate prompting them to check the animal’s camera and if need be notify the anti-poaching teams on the ground of a possible danger.

Only prototypes of RAPID are currently active, but the non-profit Protect, behind the RAPID is planning a wider launch by the end of 2016. Protect has other plans for this technology, and hopes that versions of RAPID could protect elephants, lions, tigers and whales.

The wireless systems have been developed with the goal of a minimal battery drain, so new power supplies need only be installed a “few” times over the course of a single rhino’s life. The Protect team also have lofty plans to power the devices with solar and kinetic energy to eliminate the need for batteries.

Assuming these animal monitoring cameras mouth function with less frequency than police body cameras, endangered species would be under near-constant unobtrusive surveillance.

Here’s some sample footage that shows the video from one rhino’s horn cam:

Image via RAPID