The issue with louder low flying drones is not the risk of being shot down the problem is alerting the target. But in a anti-poacher situation this may be less of an issue than in a armed conflict.
In a way, the most effective use of this money would be to alert the target well in advance, in fact, before they even go hunting is best. Spend the bulk of the money on advertising the use of these drones, produce a couple of "hits" for the technology (even if the hits are, shall we say, lightly staged), and you will probably get better results that simply pouring all the money into actual drones.
You can't skip that step or the deception will be found out, but you sure could magnify your investment.
