African Wildlife Safari in Google Earth

May 27, 2009 9:58 AM

Posted By Ford Cochran - BlogWild Editor

Frank Taylor, author of the Google Earth Blog and an avid sailor, stopped by headquarters today. Over the past four years, he's published thousands of posts about the latest features in, and innovative uses for, Google's 3D virtual globe. Given Frank's ringside seat on geo-technology and the planet, I was eager to meet him!

I asked about some of his favorite finds. He told me he was a huge fan of Mike Fay's work supporting wildlife conservation in Africa and elsewhere with a plane or on foot, a GPS, and a camera. (Me too!) He asked if I'd seen the index another fan had created of animals Fay had photographed from the sky during his Africa Megaflyover project. No...

Google painted many of Mike's photographs right into Google Earth's "base layer," so that if you zoom in close enough, satellite imagery gives way to his images. Crisp detail permits identification of individual animals.

A Google Earth Community member named "Reggie98" went the extra mile and catalogued many of the creatures, so you can open an "African Animals" folder in the application and find nearly 20 different kinds all over the continent, along with animal tracks where no critters are present. Just download and install Google Earth (if you don't already have it) and follow the instructions in Frank Taylor's post to take yourself on a virtual safari.