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Real-time tracking of animal movements is enabling more effective and efficient wildlife monitoring for management, security, and research. As devices get smaller and prices drop, the possibilities for using biologging on a larger scale have grown, and so have the possibilities for increasing customisation to meet specific research needs. Likewise, real-time tracking of illegal wildlife trade, timber, and fish products as they move from source to consumer can shed light on trafficking routes and actors, as well as support enforcement, making tracking gear a powerful tool beyond the field.

discussion

Best Temperature/ Humidity Dataloggers

Becky Heath

24 April 2023 1:30pm

I'm after getting 20-25 temperature and humidity dataloggers for deployment in the field. I've considered iButtons and other single-use devices but would rather invest in...

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discussion

GPS-GSM Collar Recommendations?

Christine Wilkinson

6 September 2023 6:36pm

Hi folks. I'm hoping to gather a list of everyone's favorite companies that create GPS-GSM collars. Our previous supplier is retiring their GPS-GSM model, which is unfortunate as...

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Lars Holst Hansen

14 September 2023 6:23am

You are most welcome! You would have to either have them custom make collars to fit hyenas OR DIY by fitting the Milsar GSM devices to collars of your own liking - but I guess you also prefer to have drop-offs - something the Milsars do not have!

Lars Holst Hansen

14 September 2023 6:30am

You are welcome! An alternative would be to look into the GSM options from Africa Wildlife Tracking (https://awt.co.za/product). I have no personal expereince with them at all but they are likely to have experience with hyena collars.

BTW. The internal drop-off option in the Vectronic-Aerospace collars is super reliable.

Matthew Stanton

23 September 2023 6:07am

Hi Lars,

One of the problems you identified with your Milsar units was the antenna being worn off. This was solved in our units by the antenna being epoxied into an abrasion resistant heavy plastic (a single piece that was also the mount and provided extra protection on the ends). I'd still want to add more of this material around the edges of the solar panels on a hyena, but for what it is worth I tried one of the koala units on our 17 kg dog for a month or so and it didn't seem to take any worse wear than it did on the koala. Any solar GPS system is going to need a counter weight to keep the GPS and solar panels skyward, so that is where I would incorporate a release mechanism (should one be required). 

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discussion

Help finding goniometers for sat tag recovery at sea

Ramón Bonfil

8 June 2023 7:47pm

Hi. I am working with pop-up satellite tags (mini PAT tags) and I am looking for a way to recover them at sea after they popped up and while still transmitting. A goniometer is...

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Harold Tay

17 June 2023 6:42am

If you can find a radio amateur club in your area, they could be a good resource.  They have a competitive event called fox hunting, which involves locating a hidden transmitter.

Anyway, a directional antenna for 401MHz can be made easily and cheaply but you have to know what you're doing.  The cheapest (USD20?) radio receiver is an SDR dongle for your laptop or Android phone, but again you have to know what you're doing.

Using this setup would be like tracking a VHF animal tag, you swing the antenna around until you get the strongest signal and go that way.  It would not be like using the Argos CLS, you don't get a GPS location of the tag, and it doesn't identify any tags it picks up.

Virginie DELEPOULLE

30 June 2023 1:56pm

1/ A goniometer is a type of receiver which can measure an angle and then tell you where your signal is coming from in a specific frequency band. It is much more complicated to develop which explain price.

2/ With a basic receiver using a YAGI antenna, you will have to get the signal location by turning around. If the receiver is not enough sensitive and if the antenna is a bad quality, you won't get signal at all. You can lose lots of time.

3/ With a basic receiver using an omni-directional antenna, you will get the signal but you won't know where the signal is coming from. Same as before, if the receiver is not enough sensitive and if the antenna is a bad quality, you won't get signal at all. Depend what you are looking for.

I hope this will help you to better understand differences between these tech. 

If you need more informations, you can contact me directly by mail at [email protected]

Paul Wensveen

21 September 2023 6:16pm

The CLS Goniometer is an excellent tool for the job - I believe it is also available to rent (at least it used to). 

If you want to go the low-budget route I would consider building a cross antenna with 4 yagi's, connect these to some kind of 4-channel receiver, and use the relative differences in intensity between the orthogonal directions to estimate the angle of arrival. You would need a way to simultaneously change the Rx gain on the four channels. Remember the transmission rate much lower than a typical VHF transmitter so it will take a while to find a tag this way. Using a single yagi would be basically impossible unless the sea is a mirror and the tag not moving in the waves.

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discussion

What is your favorite package or software for visualizing animal tracking data?

Lacey Hughey

12 September 2023 6:52pm

Hi all,I manage a large research collaborative focused on conservation applications of animal tracking data (Smithsonian's Movement of Life Initiative).  I'm interested in...

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Tobias Petri

13 September 2023 10:26am

Hi Lacey,

(thanks Lars for the praise!) 

as a developer I am certainly biased, but especially for GPS, acceleration data and advanced sensors like IMU and to analyze large amounts of data interactively Firetail (https://www.firetail.de) is really great. 

We know that a lot of our users use Firetail for most interactive exploration and during data capturing, for example to identify crucial time windows, and then use R to apply highly specific algorithms to achieve publication visuals. But more and more, Firetail will also assist with this part. We also have enthusiastic feedback for large scale annotation (state assignment) of acceleration and GPS data, like from the MPI-AB animal tracker project (housecats).

For now, as far as I know, there are fewer projects with aquatic species that use Firetail, but extending Firetail in this direction (depth sensors, 3D view and topological sea maps) is well in scope.

Firetail is developed in close contact with our users, primarily researchers and conservationists, so that we can tailor the product to their use cases, but we also use it in-house for our analysis and services, so we recognize required workflows. 

We have also developed methods for visualizing really large datasets (like high-resolution multi-year data) that can be displayed in Firetail as well as custom pipelines, e.g. to virtually capture the entirety of all movebank data (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c38CJwOw3e4).

Regarding the workshop, feel free to contact me.

Tobias

[edit: working links]

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discussion

Which market-available microphones, accelerometers and GIS sensors for dogs / pets ?

Luigi

7 September 2023 3:21pm

I have conducted an MSc thesis in data-science applied on bioacoustics data, and wish to carry on some experiments on my own now, using domestic environment as a lab.I am looking...

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Lars Holst Hansen

11 September 2023 4:33pm

 

Hi Luigi!

 

You should have a look at the μMoth 

https://github.com/OpenAcousticDevices/Datasheets/blob/main/uMoth_Datasheet/uMoth_Datasheet.pdf

 developed by @alex_rogers and others from Open Acoustics Devices:

As an alternative audiologger meant to be animal borne, check out the Audiologger developed by Simon Chamaillé-Jammes @schamaille et al :

Energy-Efficient Audio Processing at the Edge for Biologging Applications

Biologging refers to the use of animal-borne recording devices to study wildlife behavior. In the case of audio recording, such devices generate large amounts of data over several months, and thus require some level of processing automation for the raw data collected. Academics have widely adopted offline deep-learning-classification algorithms to extract meaningful information from large datasets, mainly using time-frequency signal representations such as spectrograms. Because of the high deployment costs of animal-borne devices, the autonomy/weight ratio remains by far the fundamental concern. Basically, power consumption is addressed using onboard mass storage (no wireless transmission), yet the energy cost associated with data storage activity is far from negligible. In this paper, we evaluate various strategies to reduce the amount of stored data, making the fair assumption that audio will be categorized using a deep-learning classifier at some point of the process. This assumption opens up several scenarios, from straightforward raw audio storage paired with further offline classification on one side, to a fully embedded AI engine on the other side, with embedded audio compression or feature extraction in between. This paper investigates three approaches focusing on data-dimension reduction: (i) traditional inline audio compression, namely ADPCM and MP3, (ii) full deep-learning classification at the edge, and (iii) embedded pre-processing that only computes and stores spectrograms for later offline classification. We characterized each approach in terms of total (sensor + CPU + mass-storage) edge power consumption (i.e., recorder autonomy) and classification accuracy. Our results demonstrate that ADPCM encoding brings 17.6% energy savings compared to the baseline system (i.e., uncompressed raw audio samples). Using such compressed data, a state-of-the-art spectrogram-based classification model still achieves 91.25% accuracy on open speech datasets. Performing inline data-preparation can significantly reduce the amount of stored data allowing for a 19.8% energy saving compared to the baseline system, while still achieving 89% accuracy during classification. These results show that while massive data reduction can be achieved through the use of inline computation of spectrograms, it translates to little benefit on device autonomy when compared to ADPCM encoding, with the added downside of losing original audio information.

MDPI

This one can also log acceleration and magnetometry! We have recently deployed it on muskoxen in Greenland.

For a GPS tracker, you may want take a look at the SnapperGPS by @JonasBchrt & @alex_rogers :

SnapperGPS - Home

Home page of SnapperGPS - A small, low-cost, low-power wildlife tracking system.

As an alternative the i-gotU GPS logger may be of interest:

i-gotU GT-120B GPS / GNSS Data Logger - Water Resistant, 21g only, Managing Large Deployments with Ease (2022 Edition)

(USB / Wireless dual interfaces, GPS and QZSS multiple constellations, Windows, Android and IOS compatible) Compared to previous models (i.e. GT 120) which are GPS, GT-120B is a GNSS logger that utilizes both GPS and QZSS constellations. It has multi-path detection, which dramatically eliminates Ionospheric error and multi-path effects. Compared to previous GPS models, the data accuracy is significantly better.  GT-120B has usb and wireless dual interfaces, which allows data  to be  downloaded either via either usb or wirelessly. Rather than using the proprietary USB cable for GT-120, GT-120B uses a standard micros-usb cable.  GT-120B can be used as an usb GNSS receiver with 1-10Hz update rates. When used as a GNSS data logger, the update rate is 1 Hz. Managing large deployments of GT-120B with ease The I-gotU GT-120B comes with mobile and Windows apps which help manage a large number of loggers.  1. You can view all your GT-120B devices on Google maps from your mobile phone app. 2. You can self define a group, add loggers to the group and select tracks from the group. 3. From your mobile phone, you can keep track of battery and memory statuses of all your GT-120B devices. 4. Not only can you backup your device settings, you can also standardize the settings of a bunch of devices by using import / export features. 5. If you want to protect the GT-120B data from unauthorized downloads, you can enable password check settings. 6. GT-120B can be turned on / off by a predefined schedule. Battery runtime by GPS log interval GPS log interval Battery runtime 1 sec 5 sec 15hr 10 sec 25hr 15 sec 60hr 30 sec 120hr 60 sec 180hr 60 min 2 months Logging configuration options Configurable GPS Logging interval 1sec~60min59sec Circular Logging YES POI YES Scheduled Logging YES Merge scheduled waypoints YES Smart Tracking YES Power triggered auto-logging YES    Technical Spec: Dimension 44.5x28.5x13.8mm Weight 21.5g Wireless connect with mobile phones Yes  Wireless Chipset Nordic nRF 52820 Wireless range 20m GPS Chipset MTK MT3337 Antenna Patch Antenna Channels   22 tracking / 66 acquisition-channel GPS receiver; Supports up to 210 PRN channels; GNSS support GPS & QZSS SBAS support WAAS/EGNOS/MSAS/GAGAN Other enhancement     12 multi-tone active interference cancellers (with ISSCC2011 award); Indoor and outdoor multi-path detection and compensation; Internal real-time clock (RTC); RTCM ready YES NEMA support NMEA 0183 standard V3.01 and backward compliance. Supports 219 different data update rates for position 10 Hz GPS Sensitivity Acquisition: -148 dBm (cold) / -163 dBm(hot) Tracking: -165 dBm Cold Start < 35sec Warm Start < 34sec Hot Start <1 sec USB cable micro-usb, USB 2.0 Battery 380mAh LED Blue & Red Operating Temperature -10 ~ +50°C Water-resist YES GPS Logger YES GPS Receiver USB Memory 65000 Motion Detection NO Disable Button YES Disable Wireless YES Disable LED flashing YES Setup wireless download password YES Enable wireless upon schedule YES Configure wireless broadcast interval YES Broadcast latest GPS position YES Configure wireless TX Power (output power of wireless signal) YES Rename device (such as nickname) YES Power Saving Option above 7sec NO Firmware update via PC software Device configuration via USB or wirelessly Data download via USB or wirelessly Combined maps YES GPS Data Import format GPX GPS Data Export format GPX, CSV  Software and compatibility: GT-120B comes with below software: Windows App: compatible with Windows 7, 8, 10 & 10 IOS App: compatible with IOS 12 and above Android App: compatible with Android 7 and above “I-gotU GPS” IOS / Android apps: GT-120B can connect to the “I-gotU GPS” app on iphone/Android wirelessly. The “I-gotU GPS” app has the below features: Wireless configurationInstead of connecting through a USB cable, you can now wirelessly change configuration settings of GT-120B through the iphone/Android app. Wireless data downloadYou can wirelessly download the log data from GT-120B to your smartphone. Battery and memory status on AppTo check the status of the device’s battery and memory, open the "i-gotU GPS" app. Find my Device on Google MapYou can view the locations of your devices on Google maps from your mobile phone.    “I-gotU GPS” Windows application: The new “I-gotU GPS” Windows software has the below new features: playback group movement measure distance from waypoint A to B. measure distance from different anchor points. Package content: 1 x GPS logger; 1 x USB cable; (Does NOT comes with Jelly case or fastening strap.)   Youtube videos:   - i-gotU GT-120B / GT-600B Youtube video   Documents:   - User Guide   - side by side comparison for GT-120, GT-600, GT-120B and GT600B   Sample Data Downloads:   - Sample Data File in CSV format (original data recorded by GT-120B)  - Sample Data File in GPX format (original data recorded by GT-120B)     Blogs: - How to reset the i-gotU GT-120B / GT-600B device? - Side by side comparison for GT-120, GT-600, GT-120B and GT600B   - When charging multiple GT-120B/GT-600B devices simultaneously, please avoid the following.   Software Downloads: (To download the app for Windows, iOS or Android devices, simply click the link below that corresponds to your device.)  

CanadaGPS.ca

DIY Instructions

After the two day acclimation period, with the GPS is programed, insert the GPS unit into the case and proceed to track your cat for a 10 day period.

Cat Tracker 2.0

Regarding your question on sampling frq: We have been using 8Hz (and 10 Hz on the Audiologger Acceleration logging) for our slow moving muskoxen. For an animal like a dog, you probably want to sample at somewhat higher frq. This group used 50Hz in a study of arctic fox: 

Digging into the behaviour of an active hunting predator: arctic fox prey caching events revealed by accelerometry - Movement Ecology

Background Biologging now allows detailed recording of animal movement, thus informing behavioural ecology in ways unthinkable just a few years ago. In particular, combining GPS and accelerometry allows spatially explicit tracking of various behaviours, including predation events in large terrestrial mammalian predators. Specifically, identification of location clusters resulting from prey handling allows efficient location of killing events. For small predators with short prey handling times, however, identifying predation events through technology remains unresolved. We propose that a promising avenue emerges when specific foraging behaviours generate diagnostic acceleration patterns. One such example is the caching behaviour of the arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), an active hunting predator strongly relying on food storage when living in proximity to bird colonies. Methods We equipped 16 Arctic foxes from Bylot Island (Nunavut, Canada) with GPS and accelerometers, yielding 23 fox-summers of movement data. Accelerometers recorded tri-axial acceleration at 50 Hz while we obtained a sample of simultaneous video recordings of fox behaviour. Multiple supervised machine learning algorithms were tested to classify accelerometry data into 4 behaviours: motionless, running, walking and digging, the latter being associated with food caching. Finally, we assessed the spatio-temporal concordance of fox digging and greater snow goose (Anser caerulescens antlanticus) nesting, to test the ecological relevance of our behavioural classification in a well-known study system dominated by top-down trophic interactions. Results The random forest model yielded the best behavioural classification, with accuracies for each behaviour over 96%. Overall, arctic foxes spent 49% of the time motionless, 34% running, 9% walking, and 8% digging. The probability of digging increased with goose nest density and this result held during both goose egg incubation and brooding periods. Conclusions Accelerometry combined with GPS allowed us to track across space and time a critical foraging behaviour from a small active hunting predator, informing on spatio-temporal distribution of predation risk in an Arctic vertebrate community. Our study opens new possibilities for assessing the foraging behaviour of terrestrial predators, a key step to disentangle the subtle mechanisms structuring many predator–prey interactions and trophic networks.

BioMed Central

 

 

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discussion

What Biologgers are you using?

Holly Cormack

30 August 2023 10:44am

Hello biologging community!My name is Holly Cormack and I’m the new Conservation Technology Intern in the WILDLABS team. We are researching what different...

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Amélie Campino

7 September 2023 10:51am

Hello,

Thanks a lot for putting together this survey!

Just introducing our company, Nix, french based and most recent on the market as we conceived and produced IoT biologging trackers working on GPS/LTE-M/LPWAN networks with super high autonomy and lightweight for terrestrial animals. Already working on a nanosat version for next year, to cover territories without network at all.

Our trackers have been used primarily in the EU to study species behavior in mixed enclosures and for land use management at the animal park of Auvergne, home to 65 endangered species.

Take a look at the video and let me know if you'd like to discuss your own needs!

Stephanie O'Donnell

7 September 2023 10:57am

Interesting. interesting. I'm probably jumping the gun here but I'm curious - are you getting any trends on types of biologgers or specific manufacturers people are talking about? Or is everyone using different tags/manufacturers? 

Stephanie O'Donnell

7 September 2023 11:00am

Ah! It's great to find out about your tags - great video, thanks for sharing. We'd love to hear from some of your users about their experiences with your tags! Would you be able to share the poll with your user community? 

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careers

Reviewing Now: Animal Telemetry Postdoctoral Fellowship

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

24 August 2023 11:09pm

The Smithsonian Institution seeks a field- and data-oriented biologist to support marine animal telemetry research and to assist with activities of the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry (ACT) Network. 

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article

MoveApps: A Digital Home for Tracking Data Analysis

MoveApps

17 August 2023 7:47pm

In this Conservation Tech Showcase case study from 2022 Conservation Tech Award winner MoveApps, you’ll learn how they’re breaking new ground in animal movement research with tracking data analysis tools hosted by the...

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discussion

RFID Smart traps

Caitlin Black

23 April 2021 9:10am

Hello, I am trying to find information on 'smart traps.' I am planning to transponder urban rats with RFID tags. To estimate population size using mark-recapture...

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Robin Sandfort

7 June 2022 12:47pm

Hi Caitlin,

you might also look at this RFID logger sold by Labmaker:

Greetings from Austria,

Robin

 

Roy Sanderson

11 August 2023 12:50pm

Hi Caitlin

I'd recommend https://naturecounters.com/ who from past experience will work with you to come up with a good trap design. Their approach is to use an IR to detect when an animal starts to pass through the detector, which then triggers the RFID coil to be powered up. The huge advantage of this method is the battery power required is then very low, and the data can be stored into an SD card, all in one cheap, self-contained unit.

Roy

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discussion

Firetail 11 - GPS and sensor analysis

Tobias Petri

18 July 2023 5:04pm

I'm very happy to announce  that Firetail 11 is now available, including an all-new website! (yay!)Version 11 features a great set of options for researchers,...

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Lars Holst Hansen

11 August 2023 12:15am

Hi Tobias! 

This sounds great and I am looking forward to trying it out after returning from field work! 

Very cool with the Vectronic Activity data! I am looking forward to check How we can use that! 

Cheers,

Lars

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article

#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge: Judges' Panel Honorees

WILDLABS Team

4 August 2023 10:00am

Please join us in celebrating this year’s top #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge Honorees as chosen by our panel of leading conservation organization judges, and enjoy the story contained within these entries about how our...

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discussion

non-invasive technique to apply GPS collars without catching?

Antoine Ede

14 June 2021 12:01pm

Dear all, I was wondering if they were "passive" techniques to "install" GPS collar or other GPS devices on a terrestrial animal ? Just a discussion...

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Brett Muir

6 January 2023 11:07pm

It's a start though! Always happy to see people trying to innovate. Also I thought the intent was that they wouldn't need to capture the bears like you would for a collar? We were imagining a passive system where you would have an attractant and tags could be applied to a bear by rubbing against something. 

Lars Holst Hansen

8 January 2023 5:14pm

 

Hi Brett! The original poster @antoineede surely asked for automatic non-invasive deployments and it was intriguing to see that someone actually made such a system for mule deer as @Rob_Appleby pointed out. Here is a prototype from their paper:

prototype collaring station

TWS Journals

We produced and evaluated a noninvasive automated collaring device as an alternative technique for measuring and collaring deer. Our technique is safe for wildlife professionals and nonstressful for ...

The Wildlife Society

I would love to see the wolf example too @Rob_Appleby, if you can find the reference.

In the polar bear example it was never the (initial) intention that the animals should not be captured.

It seems that they are basically looking for an alternative and less permanent way to attch the ear tags.

Here are some prototypes:

Prototype burr on fur atachments for polar bears

Image from:

It looks like they are actually using these Argos tags from Telonics:

Argos Eartag Transmitterhttps://www.telonics.com/products/argosTerrestrial/eartag.php

I am generally a bit sceptical regarding a fully automatic tracking device deployment system. In most cases, a lot of measurements (size, weight) and samples (hair, blood, saliva etc.) are taken and observations (sex, age stage, breeding condition) are done and any meta data will increase the value of the tracking data itself tremendously. Also, one might want to sometimes decide not to tag some individual because of some unforeseen condition. I would rarely just want some random collection of tracks from a number of animals you know nothing about. What about the challenge of simply restricting the system to tag only the targetted species? I guess a deliberate use if AI and computer vision could get some of these data but it is going to make the development of the system quite complex.

I still find it very interesting to follow the developments.

Antoine Ede

11 July 2023 10:48am

Thanks for all these interesting information, I'm sure that such technology will be developed in the future to dramatically reduce cost and risk of collaring such animals.
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discussion

Pangolin Tagging Challenges

Priya S Balasubramanian

11 January 2017 11:22pm

Hi! I'm looking for information on Pangolin transmitters or sensors, the basics to start off with. What information is gathered specific to this species or what are the...

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Craig Rackstraw

3 July 2023 9:24am

Hi,

Icoteq are launching a new range of small tags that would be ideal for pangolin tracking!

Called TagRanger, the technology incorporates a LoRaWAN based tag with built in sensors and GPS.  It also features a ranging solution giving you your distance to the tag when within range <150m - ideal for finding something which is well hidden as you can navigate your way to the tag until it's within touching distance!

The user carries a small handheld 'Finder' device that acts as a LoRaWAN gateway paired to a mobile phone for live mapping (on and offline maps) and ranging functions.

Size is limited by your preferred battery size, but could be as small as 32mm x 38mm x15mm with a 400mAh battery.

Production units available beginning of September, happy to do demos and trials with prototypes now!

Please feel free to contact me for more information.

 

Wildlife Drones

5 July 2023 1:53am

Hi! 

We have been working with Save Vietnam's Wildlife to track Pangolins for a couple of years now. You can read our Case Study here: 

 

 

We also documented the project and spoke with Save Vietnam's Executive Director about the challenges of tracking Pangolins - here is the video: 

They used the Telenax pangolin tags (15g) during our project which worked great with our drone-based telemetry system and were able to receive signals from a long distance. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, we are always happy to discuss tracking projects!

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article

Osa Conservation: A Multi-Tech Toolbox of Solutions

Osa Conservation

22 June 2023 10:42am

In this Conservation Tech Showcase case study from Osa Conservation, you’ll learn about how technology is aiding their long-term efforts to prevent wildlife crime, protect critical species, and build a climate-adaptive...

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Link

movedesign: a tool to evaluate sampling design in biologging

Ellie Warren

12 June 2023 11:25pm

This paper discusses movedesign, a new R app intended to evaluate the effectiveness of sampling design in animal movement research projects. This tool could be incredibly helpful for biologging community members looking to increase the effectiveness of their projects by better understanding the best duration and intervals for data collection.

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