Recommendations for physical intrusion detection in pastures

Question

Hello HN, hope you're doing well!There's a wave of horse mutilations in France, Germany and Belgium. I am directly concerned by this, as such incident happened this week close to where my horse lives.We stood watch last night, but it's immediately become clear that we can't do that every night. Also, we can't afford a night guard, it's too expensive and this wave could last for years (it's been over a year in France).I'd like to setup some kind of intrusion detection and alerting in the pastures. It is a wide open area, and animals regularly move around in there. Horses, obviously, but also rabbits, foxes, birds etc.So far we are considering cameras, but that is going to be an expensive solution, and we need to be alerted only when humans are around.I'm at a loss so far. Tired, also, haven't slept tonight.We need this deployed as soon as possible, every day matters. I'm willing to take any quick and dirty solution. We have manpower to install equipment, and some money (but not that much) to get equipment. I can also administer infrastructure and develop custom software, so feel free to suggest anything.Cheers folks!

gus_massa · Accepted Answer

Do you have a link to a news coverage of this?
The story and mutilations look very similar to the epidemic of chupacabras attacks that we had in Argentina in 2002. It was covered for a month by all the major newspaper and TV stations. [spoiler alert: it was just the misclassifications of the result of mice and foxes and other animals eating the corpse]
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EDIT: Perhaps you can put a bluetooth detectors in the necks of the horses that sends a signal to your home. I guess the attackers will forget to turn off their cell phones and you can try to detect them. (Anyway, my main hypothesis is that is a misclassification.)

GistNoesis · Answer

- With camera if you have some high vantage point which sees the whole field, it may help reduce the cost by needing only a single camera, if you can scan and zoom in the area. Maybe infrared/thermal camera is also helpful if the attacks happen at night. The human infrared signature is easily identifiable at night : a human sized blob of the right temperature.
- If you don't have a high vantage point, you can try using a balloon anchored via a rope (hydrogen (cheap but illegal) or helium).
- (If you like the technological challenge) Quadcopter drone with ardupilot at random intervals : goes up, snap a picture, goes down and land and wait on the ground to preserve battery. You can also have it land on a base station to recharge automatically. Probably hard to do when weather is not nice.
- Maybe there are some unused at night road to access the area that are likely to be used by the aggressors. Either positioning a camera there, or car counting device / induction loop may be a good bet.
If there are multiple access point, you probably can incentivize the intruders to use the easy way-in but discreetly controlled by for example putting barb-wires, electric fence everywhere, warning signs, fake camera boxes, (airsoft motion activated landmines ?), cheap radar motion detector coupled to sound alarm, ...
Usually if there are significant visible signs that the property is well monitored, intruders will pick another easier farm.

TheHeretic12 · Answer

1. Game cameras. They are purpose built for this kind of need. Your strategy should be to identify/establish clear routes in and out of your local area, and then set up an intel network in cooperation with neighbors. If you can network basic cameras, you can feed the input to a face/person recognition software. Say once every 30 seconds its sends the frame to an AWS instance or similar, and if it sees a person it rings the alarm/email alert.
Siesmographs and other such sensors can detect and track vehicles causing vibrations, some can be laid in roadway.
There are also some sensors that will detect only humans, via the ammonia our sweat contains, but I dont know if those ever made it to the public market, they were tippy top secret for the longest time.
2. Dogs. There is a landowner near me who is responsible for $5M+ of equipment and facilities. In addition to cameras and such, he has trained dogs that roam around at night. If you are already a livestock handler, adding "kennelmaster" to your job is a great way to solve your problem.
PS. There was a wave of this in my home state in the 80s. It was a combination of cults practicing, and uncommon diseases killing off livestock, which wild animals then tore apart to eat only what wasnt rotten.

sethammons · Answer

My first thought is leveraging an electric fence like a trip line. The line has to be cut or tripped for something or someone to get in. I&rsquo;d be very surprised if you can&rsquo;t find a remote voltage monitor that can tell you real time if the fence lacked adequate charge. Heck, you could run a wire from the fence to an accessible location to manually check the wire with a fence tester and it its light goes red, you know the fence is down.

GistNoesis · Answer

Have you tried putting a cheap phone heart monitor / sound monitor / sleep monitor app on the horse directly ?
I.e. you let the horses tell you when they feel stressed.
Depending on the network quality you can stream everything and process in the cloud.

baeschtl · Answer

I installed Nest Outdoor cams at my in laws last week. They can do person detection, thus you'd only be notified if a human being moves around the stable.https://store.google.com/us/magazine/compare_cameras

mythrwy · Answer

Perhaps a tall pole with some realistic looking dummy cameras to start. Along with very prominent signs that activity in the area is being recorded.Another idea, corral your horses at night. Get them in the habit of coming back to a protected area for evening feeding, lock them in and let them out in the morning.

giantg2 · Answer

Quick and dirty - tripwires either on the gates or ground (more prone to false positives) and hook them up to either electronic alarms, flood lights, or starter pistol blanks (if legal).

mellisaw · Answer

Maybe a baby monitor? Very cheap solution though I can't speak to their range.

Recommendations for physical intrusion detection in pastures

Have you tried putting a cheap phone heart monitor / sound monitor / sleep monitor app on the horse directly ?I.e. you let the horses tell you when they feel stressed.Depending on the network quality you can stream everything and process in the cloud.

I installed Nest Outdoor cams at my in laws last week. They can do person detection, thus you'd only be notified if a human being moves around the stable.https://store.google.com/us/magazine/compare_cameras

Quick and dirty - tripwires either on the gates or ground (more prone to false positives) and hook them up to either electronic alarms, flood lights, or starter pistol blanks (if legal).

Maybe a baby monitor? Very cheap solution though I can't speak to their range.

Have you tried putting a cheap phone heart monitor / sound monitor / sleep monitor app on the horse directly ?
I.e. you let the horses tell you when they feel stressed.
Depending on the network quality you can stream everything and process in the cloud.

I installed Nest Outdoor cams at my in laws last week. They can do person detection, thus you'd only be notified if a human being moves around the stable.
https://store.google.com/us/magazine/compare_cameras