Animal migration tracking
Migration tracking is a vital tool in efforts to control the impact of human civilization on populations of wild animals, and prevent or mitigate the ongoing extinction of endangered species.
In the fall of 1803, American Naturalist John James Audubon wondered whether migrating birds returned to the same place each year.
Wildlife Drones, an Australian company, developed a drone-based radio telemetry system to track small, mobile species like the Swift Parrot, one of Australia’s most endangered birds.
The system allows researchers to collect data remotely from multiple tagged animals over large distances, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of wildlife monitoring.
Alternatively, they may surgically implant it as internal radio transmitters have the advantage of remaining intact and functioning longer than traditional attachments, being protected from environmental variables and wear.
[5] This technology utilizes a light sensor that tracks the light-level data during regular intervals in order to determine a location based on the length of the day and the time of solar noon.
[5][6] Passive integrated transponders (PIT) are another method of telemetry used to track the movements of a species [5] Passive integrated transponders, or "PIT tags", are electronic tags that allow researchers to collect data from a specimen without the need to recapture and handle the animal.
[7] Pit tags are a humane method of tracking that has little risk of infection or mortality due to the limited contact necessary to monitor the specimens.
Satellite networks have tracked the migration and territorial movements of caribou, sea turtles,[9] whales, great white sharks, seals, elephants, bald eagles, ospreys and vultures.
[11] IoT or the internet of things proves to be a potential resource for the future of wildlife tracking and research.
This technology can range from low-power wide-area LPWA sensor networks attached to wildlife by safe adhesive to cameras connected to the internet using machine learning to determine what images are interesting and categorize the photos.
The program Where's The Bear is a wildlife monitoring software by the Computer Science Department at the University of California Santa Barba.
They use cameras as their sensors and machine learning to quantify the photos into empty pictures triggered by wind and rain.
This method increased the ability to categorize animals’ photos, proving a potential new technology for vast groups of people for commercial and public use.
[12] One of the benefits of intrinsic markers in general, including stable isotope analysis, is that it does not require an organism to be captured and tagged and then recaptured at a later time.
The three types of intrinsic markers that can be used as tools for animal migration studies are: (1) contaminants, parasites and pathogens, (2) trace elements, and (3) stable isotopes.
For example, stable isotope analysis has been confirmed to work in determining foraging locations of nesting loggerhead sea turtles.
With this increase in the number of species and individuals that can be tagged it is important to record and acknowledge the potential negative effects these devices might have.
