[00:00:00] Speaker A: Here's the scene. A passionate puma researcher and a digital designer from Santiago come together to tackle a conflict that's been raging for centuries. The result, a revolution and predator human coexistence.
Hey everyone, and welcome back to Rewadology.
I'm your host, Brooke Mitchell, conservation biologist and adventure traveler. And I am so excited about today's episode.
I'm sitting down with two remarkable people and Nicolas Lagos and Javier de la Fuenta. If you listen to our Patagonia series, you'll remember Nico as the puma researcher from Panthera that I met in Torres.
Well, he's partnered with Javi, a brilliant conservation technologist from Santiago, and together they've built a predator deterrent device called Blinka. This tailor made device combines flashing lights, customizable sounds and wireless connectivity to protect both livestock and predators.
We we're talking about technology that could fundamentally change how ranchers and wildlife coexist.
All of which we learn about in today's episode.
And here's where you can be a part of this as a community. We're striving to raise $25,000 to support the next phase of Blinkist testing and to get these devices to ranchers and conservationists worldwide.
You can contribute to this conservation
[email protected] Project Patagonia. Each donation tier comes various perks and rewards because we want to give back to you for joining us on this journey.
All right, everyone, let's jump into this fun and information packed conversation with Nico and Javi.
Hi Nico and Javi. I am so excited to chat about this fantastic project, one that I am very passionate about that I even got to sit down and speak with you, Nico in the field about.
And now I get to also chat with the technical side from Javi. So this is very, very, very exciting.
But first, let's get to know both of you. So it's very possible that somebody listening to this has not heard your awesome episode Nico, from part two of the Patagonia series. So for those who haven't heard that yet are starting from the very beginning that tell us a little bit more about your backstory and how did Puma's enter your life?
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Okay. Hello Brooke and thank you, thank you for the invitation. I'm super glad to have this podcast with you again.
And about myself. Well, my name is Nico Nicolas Lagos. I studied natural resources in the central city of Chile in Santiago. So all my life I lived in Santiago. Then I did a master's in Santiago, but always working in the field in the mountains, always working with cats.
And somehow I got hired by Pantera in a project that was just starting in the southern tip of the distribution of the puma. This is Patagonia, Chilean Patagonia, very close to Torres del Paine National Park, a very famous national park worldwide. And I was selected by the Panthera Puma program to begin a project with pumas and people here in Patagonia. So now I'm living in Puerto Natales, who is one small town very close to Torres del Paine National Park.
And yeah, handling this project that is mostly about again.
And the main objective of this project is to see a way to coexist between the human activities and puma conservation. And here the main human activities are two related with pumas. One is tourism, because this is one, one place who is very well known worldwide because of puma tourism here in terms of pine specifically, and also ranching, who is one of the main threats not only for pumas, but I would say like for wildcats worldwide.
And yeah, pumas took my life. Pumas made me come here and also made me meet Javi. So this is how we met Javi and why we became friends is because of this project that we are talking about now today, which is perfect.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Thanks for lobbing that up. Javi, your story, My story, how did you get here? Conservation, technology and all those things. So tell us, how did you get to today?
[00:04:38] Speaker C: Hi, thanks for inviting me to talk to you with you.
Awesome. You can also explain.
Well, my name is Javier de la Fuente. I'm a digital designer. I'm also from Santiago. I always tell that I was raising an apartment, I played in Lego and Nintendo. So basically I was not an outdoor person.
In some point of my life. I started going to Patagonia where I met some cool people. And also I was studying design here in Santiago. And somehow I realized I did my internship in a university in the United States at mit where I was working with hantavirus and how to monitor things like that, like remote sensing hanta. Because in Chile we have a few problem with that. So we needed to make some way to, I don't know, monitor the thing.
And in some point it triggered me that my love for nature and my love for technology could come together.
So I started building collars for the sheep in the ranches in Patagonia for understanding how the ranchers were moving their animals in the holistic system that they use for taking care of their grass.
So that's how I end up meeting Nico that have this awesome idea of making a deterrent and at the beginning, he was like, hey, Javi, I want to show you something, because I discovered that you're kind of an inventor. So I had this project and he showed me the.
The fox lights first for me to understand where were we?
And he's like, okay, but we need to have sound and start making some kind of experiments. And we were one day in the field. And awesomely, Nico built his book.
And after what he raised with the book, he's like, how I got some money. Can you work with the university for making our project real? And like, okay, we can start. It's not that much money and the university won't be that happy about it, but let's do it. And that's how it started. Like, super random. Life is weird. I lived in Patagonia for eight years, where I learned from horseback riding to work with the Pumas.
Between we were building stuff, I had a little love in Patagonia. Nowadays I live in another place. And I'm coming closer because my laboratory where we work is here in Santiago. So it was necessary for me to be a little bit closer. So now we were a bit far away. But I think soon we're going to go back to the field, putting our Blinkas back.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Oh, that is such an awesome, serendipitous story.
That makes total sense. Okay, because I wondered how you two met and that makes sense.
And for more context for people who might not know much about this issue, Nico, I'd like to turn it to you. What is the actual issue that Blinka is working to solve? What is this puma coexistence problem that you've been working on for a long time? And how did this idea for Blinka come to be for you?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Well, this is a conflict that have been arise, like more than 100 of years ago in all the continent. It's not only for Patagonia. It's like every place where wild big cats are present and also livestock ranching is present, this conflict arises. This is because of the livestock ranching uses usually bust areas who were previously occupied by wildcats. And this meeting in the same place of the human activity of lactose ranching and the presence of wild cats, in this case of pumas, made pumas and jaguars in other places in America, in Latin America, often could prey on the livestock. So this raised some concerns on the ranchers, on the livestock owners, that they didn't wanted their activity, their economic activity, to be threatened by a wild cat.
So the way to solve this issue, this conflict of the depredation on livestock because of the wild cats, of the big cats, in this case the pumas.
The way they solved this issue was by hunting. There are some places that hunting is legal, some others that are illegal. In the very, very past, even most countries, even Chile, here in Chile and in Argentina, until very small time ago, were even bounty hunting for pumas. So the government paid for people to hunt the pumas who was threatening the livestock ranching activity.
But somehow later, in the early 90s and early 2000, they were starting to raise a concern about conservation. Conservation arose. So this started with, in the United States, States, of course, with this, all this conservation movement.
And later it spread to other places where wildcat sleeps. So there were more, more interest in protecting them, in protecting the wildcat populations and then trying to look for another alternative, not lethal. So the way they deal with this conflict before was lethal control.
But right now people and NGOs and government agencies are trying to look for non lethal mechanism to deal with this conflict. And among these have been a lot of different approaches. One of them is the use of lagstop guarding dogs, the active shepherding of the animals, the night enclosures of the animals, the use of mules and donkeys as well, and also the use of electronic deterrents.
So there are some of these deterrents that are right now available on the market.
But what we wanted to make here with Javi was to like to make a 2.0 version of the deterrent that are already available on the market.
But gathering the information from the ranchers themselves and also from researchers that work with the ranchers in finding looks for coexistence between wildcat conservation and livestock ranching.
So that's how this project started with this idea of making a tailor made deterrent.
And maybe later we can talk about all the details, but the, the most interesting thing about this project is that a collaborative project, you can see our two faces. But behind us are a lot of people since the people who are working in the lab, the people who are working in the field, and also the people who were meeting with us, giving some ideas for this deterrent. So this is not our idea. This is a collaboration and a gathering of ideas for many people who have lot of experience either researching this conflict or either ranching like the ranchers itself, that who are working with the, with this activity.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And the best, most successful projects are collaborative.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: When you get that many people together who are personally invested and had their ideas put into it. Yeah, it's going to be so much more successful as we're starting to see. And as we're at this exciting precipice of getting this even further along and how much even from the time that you and I sat down and I first learned about the project to now, a lot of growth has happened. And I would love to turn it to you, Javi, for a little bit so we can actually understand more about what this deterrent is. Just like Nico said, Deterrent 2.0. So how did you approach the design of Blinka? And like how did you they come up with a device that not only can withstand Patagonia crazy weather, but also be usable for ranchers who are there first and foremost they need to ranch.
How did you approach this to create what now we see as the Blinka design have been a long way actually.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: Because at the beginning I work for a university like an innovation laboratory.
And when I first said that I wanted to build this, that it was like just a device with light and sound, everybody looked at me and but that's so easy. Why you want to do that? But that was like five years ago. And I was like, okay, if it's so easy, let's do it. It's going to take not that much time and it's okay.
And we start building like at the laboratory, the first prototype. First we decided that had to be round because our main thing was to be 360. So if the animal came from whatever place this will trigger. Then we realized that the other problem. At some point I understood that the Pumas we have to with the light send a light beam of a kilometer away. And I start buying all the lights that they use for hunting to see how strong they were. And then I realized looking in the Internet that it was not necessary that we have to point there 1km. Just have to be seen from 1km. So we have to do something that was quite compact. So if it was thrown or the animal, I don't know. The cows like to scratch their body in the deterrent. So they have to not get destroyed with that. Not just the weather. We have a lot of issues that we not even thought about it.
We start 3D printing devices and taking it to the field and see what happened. Put in camera traps. Seeing.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Okay, yeah.
[00:14:45] Speaker C: This one there is water inside. So we have a problem here. This one, the battery last one day doesn't work. Okay, what is going on? Which are the sounds? Nowadays we are making tests of which sounds use more energy, which lights use more energy. Make a combination so we have enough energy for them to with a solar panel. To recharge in the day and then work at night.
How long every light or every sound have to be like what time have to be on. So have been a long way to understand really how we are dealing with animals that get used to light and sound quite easily. So which sound, which light? So it has been like any innovation project is like that, like prototyping, putting the field coming back. Okay, let's fix. Okay. Yeah. This work? No, this doesn't work. Yeah, we changed the shape because now we're using three lights for having a 360.
You could see the lights from all around and we're using less battery.
And then we realized that every device in the world had battery issues.
In the beginning we thought it was us, like what we're doing wrong, that batteries. We're having a problem.
So have been like that. Like actually like a proper invention, like with all the steps of an innovation project, like in a context that is in the wild with animals. So it's quite fun to do it like that even.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: How many?
No, like how many prototypes then do you think that you've gone through so far? I'm just curious now.
[00:16:28] Speaker C: Like 15.
Wow.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Yeah. But some of them went to the field and some others remained in the lab. So there's a lot of work behind that. So that's why what Javi tells is that some persons should. Can think that it's easy, like putting a speaker and a lantern battery. That's it. Easy, but not. It's a lot of work behind is the programming of the. Of the whole system, the battery issues, the weatherproof, because this will be. Will need to be on the weather outside. So we need to be waterproof, need to resist high temperatures, low temperatures, for we don't know what would happen in like in places like in Amazon where there are like ants that can enter inside and maybe bite the. The wires.
So there's a lot of things to think about that as conservationists from the areas of science, of biology. We don't never think. We think, okay, we want this device and will be easy. We can make it down in a year.
But once you know the work of the other side of the technology part, you know that that is a lot of work in the lab itself that like a lot of testing, a lot of people, a lot of heads thinking about it. A lot of mistakes because you need to make the mistakes to figure out what you need to change.
So this has been a very, very long project, but it's super good that we kind of succeeded moving forward because I Know that this is not the first time that someone want to build a deterrent like Tailor Made.
But mostly all the projects that I know that tried to do this in the past, they fell out. And when they found the first barrier, so they found an issue, let's say with the battery or an issue with the weatherproofness and they didn't have more funding to continue with the project and they drop it.
So the good thing is that we are stubborn, both myself and Javi, and we want to continue.
We believe in the project and we convinced both Pantera from my side and the university from Hobby side. We convinced them that this is a super interesting, good and good project that will help people, will help Pumas. And also the people is waiting for this. Since we like put this. Once we put this project like in.
In the world, like we spread, we make it more visible. A lot of people started to contact us and is waiting for us, is waiting for the deterrent to be done, to test it then on their ranches, on their projects, on their experiments. So we think that will be a really good improvement for the different tools that nowadays are to solve this, are made to solve this conflict.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: I have something else to say that actually we learn how to prototype quite cheap. We're using 3D printing and things like that. We have changed materials and everything. But the also interesting part is that we have test with the ranchers. So every time we have put a device out, we have been talking about how it's going to work, what is missing, why it failed, even the shape of the thing. At some point, I don't know, one of the boys dropped it and it was broken. So things like that, that are so easy, but actually it makes sense because if it get dropped, cannot be broken or cannot move inside things that you never expect that could delay the prototyping part, but have been fun. And I think every time somebody else came to the team to work with us at the beginning, everybody's like, what are you doing? What is this? And then they're like, whoa, yeah, this is like a pro project.
Actually here in the university is one of the ones that have gone like keep going without any. Doesn't matter, we have to continue.
And that doesn't happen that much.
And also with Noda tremendously funding, because we have to.
If we build and we broke, we have to build again. And it's time. And it's not just money, it's like people working on it and trying everybody to have all the. I don't know how you say that. In English, like all the. Like the happiness of the situation. Like we are a happy team and that's really important. And we are all friends and we can talk. I think that makes also a difference. That is not like the tech area in one area and then they feel people in the other one. It's all together trying to figure it out, how we deal with it.
Also with up and downs. We have walked with Nico to the top of the mountain with a deterrent and I have got there like a on what happened? I charged them like another one time. I always laugh with my voice, like hey, don't make me go hiking. And then the thing doesn't work.
Things have floating my face like hey, Javi, look what did it? Tv Pim on poom pom. What happened?
So things like that. Like you don't imagine how many saving now we always have laugh about it and try to fix fix as fast as possible. But things like the charger was not fast charged. So I put a fast charger.
So that's why I had no battery. Or things like. So random. All the like random things, solar panels that you buy on the Internet. It says 10 watts for example. When I test them outside, they're 3 watts or I don't know. So that doesn't work because it's not enough. So we have to change it. So think that you see, not even the specification of the thing is telling me this.
So everything that comes from China, we have to check it before we put it in the deterrent.
We made everything at the lab. We start building our PCB boards, for example, for the electronic part. Nowadays we are building in China, but everything started here.
Basically do it yourself kind of deterrent. We have put our heart in the project. It's not that we wanted to make a business about it. On the contrary, we want to save cats and carnivores in general.
And I think that's the awesome part of this.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And also just to add about that, about what Javi said before, is that something very nice about this project that everything started as a crowdfunding campaign. So we had this idea.
We were convinced that this idea needed to be done. And then we tried to find the funding and we funded this project from the proceedings from the sales of a book. Of a Puma book.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: You are Puma book.
[00:23:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Do not undercut yourself.
[00:23:27] Speaker C: It's beautiful.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Yes, that is something super nice because it's a Puma book that was created for Pumas and with a lot of images from Pumas and all the money from this project from this book, all the proceedings went to say is going now to save the Puma. So it completes the whole silk crew. And also it made us and show also all the people that you can make stuff. You can make their project. You don't need like to have a donor, a big donor. Or you maybe you can apply some for some grants. But somehow, if you believe in your project, you will get. Somehow the money you will try will mean more effort for sure. Because making a book is not easy and then selling the book is not easy.
So raising money is always an issue. But if you are convincing your project, I think you can succeed. And now we are looking that there are more and more people interested in the project. Not only in testing the deterrent, but also in funding us. So now we are receiving funding. Actually, this is one example yourself you believe in the project and you are raising a crowdfunding campaign to fund the second stage of this project. So it's bringing more people. Now that the project exists is not anymore an idea is bringing more people inside.
So that is something super nice.
[00:24:52] Speaker C: I have another thing to say about that. We started in Patagonia, actually. And it's from Patagonia to the world. It's not the contrary. It is not that somebody came with an idea outside and we started. No, it's like, okay, we have this problem how we spread it out, how we made it for another carnivore, not just cats. The idea is to we tailor made the sound so you can change them. So it depends on where you wanted to work with it, how it's going to work actually. So I don't know have been a fun story how this have been developing.
It's not a normal one because I see other projects like tech projects, a lot of them I work in a university.
And how I don't know how ideas became all together, I think is the most beautiful part about this and the idea and all the team is pro Puma. We are just not pumas. Even the boys here that work in a lab now understand that there is a world outside that. I think that's also an important part that somebody's going to use this and we're going to make a difference probably with wildlife, everything is like most of the projects are for humans. This actually is for wildlife.
So I think that's beautiful about it.
Yeah.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: And I would like to learn more about why this device works. So this is going to tap into predator biology.
So a lot of deterrents, like you said, Fox Lights, which we talk a Little bit more about that, different sounds, all that kind of stuff. But this particular piece of tech has both uses, both uses lights, uses strobes, uses sounds, all this stuff. So why is that? Why does this actually determine carnivores? And I said I'm saying carnivores in general because obviously the goal is for this to not just work against pumas, even though, yes, they have an insanely large range and that will help with a lot of, you know, predator, prey or like, coexistence issues. That's just one species, that's only one type of predator. But if we want to use this in a lot of places, we, we need to deter more. So from a biology standpoint, why does this deterrent work?
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Wow, interesting question and super difficult because this is going from the theory to the practice and we know that not all predators are the same, not all predators behave the same. Canids are way different than felids.
Felids are super cautious animals. So all these deterrents work in a way that they kind of show human presence or try to show human presence on the field by sounds, by light or others.
And when they feel it, when they cat or the foxes or even the bears, we want to test this with bears as well.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: That'll be really interesting.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: So when they see the light or when they hear the sound, they immediately think that there are people around.
So they always try to avoid people, they try to avoid the conflict.
So that is what is in theory.
But the second stage of this project that will hopefully start at the end of this year will be to actually test this deterrent if it deters the animals or not. We know that there are some other commercial deterrent like the Foxlite or Nightguard or Predator Guard that are working well with some species, with some other, doesn't work pretty well.
So that's why we want to test this deterrent in different environments first, to see if the weatherproofness of the deterrent is working properly. But also we want to see if the deterrent is working properly in deterring the different predators, the different carnivores.
So we know we are not expecting that this will work with any carnivore species in the whole world, but we want to see which are the ones who are more susceptible to this deterrent.
If not, if there are others that they don't care about the deterrent. Maybe we can make later more a couple of improvements to this deterrent just to make it more widely for to be used under different situations.
But yeah, it's a question that we also have. We will need to answer during the next year.
But I can tell you that usually the canids are more difficult to handle than cats. So for cats, cats are way more cautious than canids.
I don't know. Bears, I don't know. I never worked with birds. We don't have bears here in Chile.
But yeah, we need to learn about people who work with these animals. That's why we are building now a network of researchers and ranchers who are working and trying to deal with this conflict in different places of the world.
And later on, let's say if the deterrent doesn't work with bears, it's okay, completely fine.
But we will know if. If someone approach to us and says, hey, I have this trouble in this with a bear, I will tell. We will be able to tell them, okay, but we have tried this and it's work not working well with bears or with any other animals.
So that why we need to know, we need to measure that. So this is part of the second stage of the project to like to take it out to the world and be tested by real people doing real stuff in real life.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: And you've hinted at it several times now, and I would like to bring it more to the forefront. And that is the human elements, you know, the people who actually need to put this on the land to deter these carnivores. And that's the ranchers, that is the local communities.
How are they receiving, Working with them? How like, did you approach them? Like, hey, like, we had this idea or did a rancher approach you? I know that you were deep into the Puma coexistence work here in Patagonia, Nico. So what was their rancher's initial thoughts? When you're like, hey, I want to develop, essentially, like you said, Deterit 2.0 to help with coexistence on your land. How did they take that? Were some people against it? Or they're like, absolutely, please, you can. We can be partners on this.
Yeah, I would love to hear how the cultural side of this went for you too.
[00:31:38] Speaker C: I want to start in that saying that we, me and Nico came from the city and that's a huge thing.
We have to start like, hey, we have this idea and everybody thought that we were crazy. No, Nico. Because they thought we didn't experience the field because we were both born in Santiago. That is a huge city. If I show you outside of Seawall, it's like, we grow in New York, but we wanted to work, I don't know, in Canada.
Vintage Colombia, like something super.
So I think with that we had an issue at the beginning, but now they believe us.
What is your point?
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that also working on a field that is related to your field, but is something completely different. Like working in livestock ranching is not something that we were used to do. We work with ranchers before, but knowing all the management and the production and the real stuff on the field is completely out of our knowledge.
So the first recipe for this is like being humble. It's like, you know that they know more than you. And that's how this project started. We didn't want it to come with this idea that came from our minds and from the lab and to test them with the ranches. But this idea was created with the ranchers themselves.
So that is something super important.
Not the same ranchers that we are working with right now, because we cannot work with every rancher in the world, of course, but when we present the project and we tell them, hey, we gather all the insight from other ranchers like you working in the High Ende, working in Brazil, working in the US Working in Argentina, they realize that, ah, okay, this is something that my equals things that are important.
And when they are asking about the details of the deterrent, they recognize that because there are some stuff that are kind of worldwide about, I don't know, sounds. Let's say sounds can repeal the animals. It's okay. Which kind of sound? The gunshot, the alarm, the screams. So this is something that is like common to every rancher where when you talk and when they realize that all of this is already inside the project, is inside the deterrent, they realize that this is something. Okay, was well thought before moving forward and before starting to talk with the ranchers. But still there are some ranchers that are skeptical that they want to keep doing their business in the traditional way. And that is completely fine for us. We don't come to fight against anyone. We want to work with the people who want to be more open to try this stuff. We always say them that they will be our guinea pigs for this project. So we will try this. We don't know if this will work.
We believe, of course, and we think and we are putting all your. All our energy to make this work. But we will. We don't know. We need to be like very, like, we need to be very realistic and honest to with them, telling them that, okay, this is not the silver bullet for all your issues, but this can help and we need your help to make this happen. And if, if this Device needs something else. We can make it.
I mean, the team can make it in the lab.
Yeah. This will be a living project. This is something also that is important so that right now there are some ranchers that believe in this project, but others who doesn't. But it's okay. It's completely fine.
Later, if this start to work properly on the field and start to reduce the losses of some ranchers here or in other places, maybe the neighbor will realize, okay, maybe I need a couple of these. Maybe I will try. What would be more open to try this stuff? And that's how the plate will grow. We need these kind of ambassadors in different places.
And we are working little by little, I think.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: Yeah, social proof is a real thing.
I mean, I'm the same way with a lot of stuff. Like, there's always the early adopters who always go get that new piece of tech or wearing that crazy thing of fashion. You're like, that is ugly. And then realize, like, three years later that everybody's wearing that thing thing, you know, like, there's always the phases of all of these kinds of things, and you need the social proof. So that makes total sense. Do either of you have an example of, like, a piece of feedback or an idea that a Rancher came to YouTube that were like, oh, my gosh, that is such a genius idea that then got put into Blinka. Just curious.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: I think what you are doing right now, Javi. The hive connection between the devices.
[00:36:53] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: You can talk about that.
[00:36:56] Speaker C: Yeah, we're trying to connect. One of the steps is to connect all devices. Like, if it's because of the randomness. We thought about that, like, okay, if it will have one device, it's static here, but if the animal triggers this one and the other one start barking and having a disco take on it.
It's something that we thought, like, with other ranchers, like how we make it more tension. Like fences. We are imagining virtual fences of deterrence in this point.
So it doesn't matter where the animal is triggering the fence.
All the things will move and do stuff.
So things like that have been ideas of the ranchers of one device will not work or where I have to put this device to really, like, how we put it will work the most. And we are trying to work in that hive way of thinking. Like, it's like, IoT Internet of Things by in the wilderness.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: That makes total sense. Absolutely. I think. Was it Panthera that posted a video of, like, multiple ones going off at different times?
[00:38:06] Speaker B: I feel like I Don't know.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: Was that maybe that was a different maybe? Yeah, maybe that was a different.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: But as long as I know there are no device that this far that can communicate between each other and send the information to activate. Because maybe we need to talk about a little bit about the details of this deterrent specific deterrent that we already told you that have light. So need to have very powerful light that need to be seen from far away.
We put a limit, the lower limit of 1 km away. So at least need to be seen from 1 km by human side.
Of course, we don't know if the cats or the dogs or the foxes or anyone, any other animal can see it, but at least us as humans can see the light from 1km away.
And also having a speaker with sounds, different kind of sounds. So with this far we have a set of five different sound between the gunshot, humans screaming, the alarms, the dogs barking.
So and will have the. The chance to put your own sound. So if a rancher want to put, I don't know, heavy metal music on it, it's completely fine. You can put your favorite music on it, sleep token, anything, even Black Sabbath, your children screaming or laughing or yourself screaming. You can make it. You can. We'll have a micro SD card where you can put any sound you want.
[00:39:37] Speaker C: So also we're going to start working hopefully with ultrasound because there are places where human like national parks are quite tricky because we cannot be triggering gunshots in the middle of the national park because it makes sense.
So things like that we hear about when we put them in the field, like, hey, I cannot have this near my hotel because my people is sleeping. I cannot be gunshot or screaming. Screen. There's a screen that is crazy.
So like it's. It's scary for anybody even we have talked about putting the houses to deter the bugglers from the houses because.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: So.
[00:40:22] Speaker C: Like that we are trying to. Okay, if somebody says something, at least we will try it.
Sometimes we will not take it, but we will try it and we will let them know, hey, we tried this and this happened. Or that's why Niko's 34 is a collaborative project because we are hearing everybody from which I don't know, MP3 player we have to use in the deterrent itself to what the rancher says. It's a huge community.
We have a PUA party with the tech team. Miko was part of it where everybody were talking about. There are issues in other projects with water with how they solder with which memory they're using in this IoT thing if they're using Bluetooth or WI fi or low quality Bluetooth.
So have been a mix of people really talking and understanding what are the issues in all levels. The other interesting part is that we have tried to get all together now. I'm trying to put every problem in one thing and try to put them apart because at some point, okay, the battery was working, but I don't know, the case was full of water and things like that. So we couldn't take all the problems together to really fix it.
But I think that also makes this, we're a team and we can nobody have a bad idea. It's just another way of thinking a problem.
And I think that's quite interesting too because we have all the minds from the ranchers to the tech people that work with artificial intelligence. So it's like a line of different kind of personalities and knowledge put together in a device.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And just to finish about the components. So the other main component of this device is a PIR sensor. Same as the camera traps or these lights on the houses that turns out on with the movement.
This is the same when the PIR sensor sends a movement of an animal, it turns on the device. So the good thing about this is that we want this to make it the most tailor made as possible. So you can put on or off any of these different components. So if you want to deploy this deterrent near your house and you don't want the sound, any sound at all, you can turn off the sound and work only with light.
So you can work only with the PIR sensor, not randomly. Or maybe you want to turn on off the PIR sensor and only to work randomly, but only the sound or both light and sound.
So we are building this deterrent to make it as most widely used as possible.
So not to have this problem that if one person want to put it in one place that doesn't need a sound because I don't know, it's close to people and people want to sleep. Will not work. No, we have the solution for that. You can just turn off the sound. So that is something super important. Apart on the other stuff we already talk about, about the solar panels, the PCR plate, the batteries, the design itself is an issue. It's a thing. It's a thing about things. Thinking about how to put all the components in one place in a thing that need to be out on the field forever. So that is the thing.
This will not work inside. This is meant to be work and to be used outside in the weather. With animals. With animals that can kick the device, that can rough on the device, that can bite the device or need to be sought like in a way that is super strong, both for the weather.
[00:44:17] Speaker C: And both for the animals and also for the ranchers.
Like we tech people don't think that normal people will use devices. For example, one told me was like his finger was too thick for the switch so he couldn't because I don't know, it was cold and okay, yeah, let's see how we can fix that.
Easy things that nobody thought about it but actually of course, yeah, they are like their hands are more hard than mine, for example, or bigger. And how that is used, that's a design problem.
Not just like had been interesting giving these devices to people that not actually are tech people or anything. It's just like anybody have to be able to understand it and use it. And also that's a like think to think about it.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: And so where we're at right now and what this episode is going to be a part of. Just like you brought up Nikki, want to go a little a little bit further from now. We'll talk about the fundraiser that we're doing.
But this is to help fund the next phase of this. So what is the next phase? Or do you have a solid prototype that you're going to then start putting into the field? Or are you still experimenting with prototypes? But yeah, where is the project at currently in both of your work and what will hopefully this episode in the fundraiser help launch next for you?
[00:45:44] Speaker B: I will leave it to you, Javi.
[00:45:46] Speaker C: I think now we have a prototype that work for itself and I hope today the sun is up all day long so I can fix solar panel battery issues. But I think the next step is this fence that we were talking about making the device a virtual fence. So I don't know a rancher have four or five of them and ranchers know their field so they know more or less where pumas are coming from and try to start stopping that. So I think the next phase is that one like first wearing the thing have to be weatherproof, animal proof and farmer proof. And after that and after that it's like more in the tech area. And also we have a protocol to see if the device itself is deterrent carnivores.
That's how we are working. I think now Nico.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: Yeah. What Javi is saying that is like this project will continue.
Will not stop. I don't know. Never probably.
Because now is this stage when the love, having her love will. They will build 100 units.
So these 100 units will go to the field in different places. In the US in Costa Rica, in Colombia, in Argentina, in the high desert, in Saudi Arabia, there are actually, there are some of them in places with high humidity, with high rain, in places like inside the forest where you have a. A cover with low light and maybe can have issues with.
We don't know. There are so many stuff that we probably overlooked in this first stage of the project that we are relying on the people who will test it on the field so they can help us later to build a better unit.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: And this is a more personal question for both of you and you can answer it in your own ways.
For you, since you're both coming at this from different directions, you have different backgrounds, you work for different organizations. What will success mean for you?
Whatever the end of this, if there is. It doesn't sound like there's an end, but when will you feel like you've reached success for this project? What does that mean for you?
Either of you can go. Whoever has the answer first.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: It's a hard one.
[00:48:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we can talk about. I think we are already success. We are like Nico, we came from different areas and we're together working in a project that actually is working, that's also a success.
The idea of the deterrent is to save wildlife. So I think that's also a point of success.
And for me also that the ranchers start using them because I'm a woman in South America, that is like super macho and why girls are in the field and why I should know about tech.
And nowadays that is changing. And I think it's also a success that we came from the city and actually they're believing in our things. So for me, all those areas, maybe we will not have a success. Like I want to get to this point. I think success have to be seen as small steps that we have. Even for me, the university, to believe me in what we're doing is a success.
So, yeah, for me it's more about that.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: Yeah, from my point of view, I think I can go for the very root of this project is like changing people's perception again for pumas on Pumas because this project started because there is a bad perception of ranchers on pumas on any other carnivore. So if we can change that in some way, if this project can change the way they think about the animals they surround that are surrounding the ranch, if we make. We can make any change on that, I think I can call this Breed a successful is a hard way because it's going to the deep inside, the deep maybe cultural part of the project, of the behavior of humans.
But this is. How about this project? This place is about building coexistence, how ranching can coexist with pumas around, how the ranchers can be maybe not happy but okay with pumas going around the ranch and patrolling around the ranch. But the pumas or other cats not messing with the livestock.
So if this deterrent can make this can make the the feeds the cats to be around the animals and maybe killing 11 sheep every long time that is maybe affordable for the ranch and is to tolerable for the rancher.
For me it's a success.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that is so cool. I mean I love everything about this project. When I learned about it from you, Nico, when I came I was like oh my gosh, this is the project. I mean also I'm very biased towards cats so there's that too.
But all the project I could have supported I was like I want to support this one. But that's my personal bias. But also too it's long lasting coexistence is such a big topic and if we can help both people and wildlife live together then that's like a really big noble thing that all of us can strive for in this field. But Nico, I probably should have asked this question earlier but I think now is the perfect time. How did the project get its name? Name?
[00:51:33] Speaker B: Ah, that is super interesting question.
Well, this spread started with many different names for us. It's called Espanta Pumas. It's like a puma espooky in Spanish.
So internally we call it Espanta pumas. But we knew that we needed like a more catchy name for outside because this place is thought to be outside as well. We know that English is the world language and actually was one of the people working in the lab with Kavi that came with this name. But that was the perfect, the perfect name. The name is Blinka. So it's blink plus A.
So the name itself, if we separate the different words, blink is because of the blinking, blinking lights.
Plus A is audio. So it's the main two parts of the deterrent that will actually work to deter the predator. The carnivore will be the blinking light and the audio. But also there's a very well known cat here in Torres del Paine. As you know here, Torres del Paine is one of the number one places. It is the number one place where photographers, documentaries and people who love Cats come here to see and photograph and see the cats.
And most cats here have their own name. And there's a very well known cat here called Blinka. So this name was also to honor this cat and also to honor what Javi already said that this device was created here in Patagonia. So the name is about the deterrent itself. But the name brings also here to the beginning, very beginning of the poet who is Patagonia and is Patagonian Pumas.
[00:53:21] Speaker C: The people in Patagonia know that Blinka is called Blinka because of the puma. So that's kind of nice.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: And why Blinka is named Will Blinka. Blinka de Puma is because she have only one eye. She lost her eye in a very early of her life and she tried. So she's an emblem of the puma here because it shows the resilience of the puma here living only with one eye until adulthood, raising kittens, several different litters. So it's a really resilient puma and we are really honored to have her on this device. So it's a super powerful female puma in this region.
[00:54:09] Speaker A: I love it. I love it, love it, love it. I love everything about this project. It is phenomenal.
Awesome. Well, those are all of my questions about this. So I would love to turn it to you, both of you. And again, whoever wants to go first, if you have any last closing comments or thoughts or ask that you have of the audience, like now's the time, go for it.
[00:54:32] Speaker C: Mine is that you have an idea. You have to keep on reaching your dreams.
This mainly was Nico's dream and I got attached to his dream and now it's mine too. So when you're like powerful in your ideas and how you see life keep going, you never know what can happen.
[00:54:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And also what I learned about this project is that you are not alone alone, because we work in conservation and we have been partnering with biologists, with zoologists, with ecologists for my whole career.
But there are people around that are working in a completely different areas, like technology. In this case, there are people who are inside a lab.
Like all the team of Javi here, there in the university is on the lab.
And probably I would never met them in any other situation than this one. And this is gathering people together with the same interest.
And yeah, I think that is super important that we are not alone, have more people hiding, I don't know where, but with same interest as we have, maybe lawyers, maybe educators, maybe marketing, people from marketing. In this case is an example from bringing technology and conservation together. But any other area of anything can be partnered with conservation. So conservation is so worldwide and is so common to any place in the world that I think, I really think that when people ask me how I can work in conservation, you can work in conservation in whatever the place where you are.
So if you are like a builder, if you build things with your hands, you can work in conservation as well. You can help building, I don't know, enclosures, how to make enclosure more predator proof. So you can like from anywhere, you can work in conservation and never be.
[00:56:40] Speaker C: Afraid, and never be afraid of telling your ideas because in the world we're always like, no, don't tell it because somebody's going to patent or no, no, don't be like that. Because if you don't share your ideas, we cannot collaborate because every idea is different and maybe together they make a third one. So, yeah, there are.
No, don't keep your ideas for yourself. Tell them nothing will happen. Like nothing bad will happen.
[00:57:05] Speaker B: As people said, only good stuff.
[00:57:07] Speaker C: Yes, yes.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: Well, Javi and Nico, I am so happy you two came together for this wonderful project because again, like I said, my personal mission is to help be the amplifier of coexistence and these type of projects and voices like yourself. So thanks for this and then everybody, yeah, we are rewadology and as many people as we can possibly get to come together. Speaking of collaboration, this is like a call to arms for everybody to come together and let's try to raise at least $25,000 for this project. So that is the current goal. All further information this episode, all everything that we're gonna be doing with it will be
[email protected] so everybody join us. Let's save some pumas. Let's save some wildlife. Let's.
Let's support amazing conservationists like you two.
And I am so, so appreciative of you coming on and talk with me.
[00:58:00] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you, Brook, for giving us this space and also for believing in this project. You have been a supporter since the very beginning, since the first time we met until now. And who know where in be in beyond that that.
So, yeah, thank you. Thank you very much for your support.
[00:58:16] Speaker C: Thank you for helping.
Being part of the dream. Now you're part of the dream. See.
[00:58:26] Speaker A: What an inspiring conversation with Nico and Javi. Their collaboration shows us what's possible when people connect from different worlds to tackle conservation challenges. And Javi's point about never being afraid to share your ideas because collaboration makes everything possible.
That really resonated with me.
If you're feeling inspired and would like to contribute to this project, head on over to givewater.com Project Patagonia or the Rewadology website to help us raise $25,000 for the next stage of development of this fantastic project.
And if you want to experience Patagonia firsthand, I'm leading an expedition where you can join me in the very places these conservation stories are happening. We'll track Pumas, the Torres del Piney, kayak amongst glaciers, and trek through mountain passes. You can learn
[email protected] PatagoniaExpedition Whether you support from home or join us in the field, you're helping build a world where technology, communities and wildlife work together.
Thanks for listening to Rewildology. And remember, together we'll rewild the planet.
