At only 16-years-old Teenager Nadav Ossendryver has created a crowd surfing website, Latest Sightings, that provides updates on animal sightings in South Africa's Kruger National Park.
CNN reported that Ossendryver has spoken at major technology conferences, won awards and has helped save the lives of animals. His tracking website, provides real-time updates.
He founded it in November 2011 and using social media visitors share the location of animals they saw, which helps other visitors increase their chances of spotting animals in the wildlife park. There are myriad wild animals in the park including, leopards, cheetahs and elephants.
"Established in 1898, Kruger spans nearly 2m hectares and contains a rich diversity of species: 336 types of trees, 49 fish, 34 amphibians, 114 reptiles, 507 birds and 147 mammals," reported The Guardian newspaper.
Ossendryver to CNN, "Whenever we came here I used to beg my parents to stop every car passing and ask them what they'd seen. After a while they got irritated, so I was thinking, what's an easy way of getting people to share their sightings without having to stop every car?"
Once returning to his home in Johannesburg, he created his first wildlife-tracking iPhone app. Ossendryver said to CNN that with Facebook, Twitter and the website they have over 33,000 people that use the site.
"When I started I thought I won't even get 100 people. I never thought they'll be more than 100 people that like Kruger enough to actually follow the sightings but now there are 33,000 people, it's just unbelievable," he said to CNN.
The website also has contact numbers to report rhino poaching which has become a major concern.
Ossendryver started to collect data when he visited the park five years ago and know has a breath of information about the animals there.
"I can tell you every lion I saw, what it was doing, where it was and the weather at the time," he said to The Guardian. I love everything about the game reserve. You can go 1,000 times and never see the same thing. I could spend all day there, but not all day on the beach."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
