Group

Biologging / Feed

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

DIY VHF receivers?

Hi everyone. Looking for an affordable DIY VHF receiver option. I'm working with an engineer to develop an automated audio playback system that will play pre-recorded sounds from...

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Hi @bcwheeler43 , I haven't used the radio-tracking.eu setup in particular, but it looks pretty similar (at least in principle) to Motus (https://docs.motus.org/en/about-motus/quick-reference/station-deployment). My experience with the Motus set up is that it can take a bit to get it all to work, but, there's a fairly active community here (https://sensorgnome.org/) that you might be able to get tips and guidance from. If you are looking for a more off-the-shelf option, have a look here (https://celltracktech.com/pages/digital-radio-products). They might even be able to help you get a system ready to detect tags and then activate your playback...

And in case any of it helps, whilst we didn't use VHF, here's a paper where we used UHF tags we designed to do something similar (https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/2041-210X.13651). See case study 2. All the files are released to open source, although some of the parts might be getting a little harder to find...I am hoping to an update soonish...You might have also come across Breck and co's old paper (https://escholarship.org/content/qt4gv9x4j1/qt4gv9x4j1.pdf) that has a little detail, although not really enough to build a full system.

Anyhow, I think a VHF version would be very useful as so many collars use VHF transmitters. 

Please keep us posted with your progress!

Cheers,

Rob

 

Thanks for this! I wasn't aware of your paper, so that's super helpful! One of the main reason we are aiming for VHF rather than UHF is that we thought the UHF tags wouldn't work to trigger the sound from as far away as we are hoping to. In any case, I'll send this along to my engineer and do my best to digest everything myself. I may get back in touch if you don't mind, and in any case will let you know how it works out. Thanks again!

Brandon

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article

The Variety Hour: 2024 Lineup

You’re invited to the WILDLABS Variety Hour, a monthly event that connects you to conservation tech's most exciting projects, research, and ideas. We can't wait to bring you a whole new season of speakers and...

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discussion

extending battery life with solar panels

Is anyone out there up for a development challenge involving "smart" GPS and accelerometer collars with extended lifetimes (arorund a year), possibly involving solar...

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Hi Peter, we manufacture solar powered Iridium trackers for birds, crocs/alligators and collars for various species. Our longest standing unit is a 55g unit on a Vulture and has been going for 4 years, providing data on an hourly basis. Our croc units include a pressure/depth sensor and provide details of depth and time at depth. Most of our devices include a VHF transmitter which is fully configurable over the air (you can change frequency, pulse duration, pulse interval and operation times - good for security).

Hello Peter, 

Have you find a solution ? I will be happy to discuss with you about your project and field challenges ? 

Best,

Virginie

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discussion

IgotU

Hi,I guess a number of you have used these in the past. They are very good GPS loggers and very affordable. have been working with the manufacturer and tested a new model with...

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Hi Rob, Yes these are indeed the models. They are as reliable as the old originals. I have the GT120B's, G2S with/without solar and some GW's. Production has stopped and they won't be available in the future and I'm getting hold of their remaining boards. Have a big batch of GT120A's too which were only deployed once on a big seabird project which I will test at some stage and make available.

I have couple of good use cases for this model in a conservation project here in Cambodia however limited by lack of funding.  Would be happy chat if you are interested. 

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event

The Variety Hour: March 2024

Variety Hour is back! This month we're talking about making AI more accessible with Pytorch, new developments from WildMe and TagRanger, and working with geospatial data with Fauna & Flora. See you there!

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discussion

Leveraging Actuarial Skills for Conservation Impact

Hello Wildlabs Community,I'm an experienced actuary with a deep passion for wildlife and conservation. With over 15 years in the insurance industry, I've honed my skills in data...

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discussion

Need tips on best practices tracking turtles

Hi, I am working on a project that aims to track the movement of turtles in the Amazon. I would like to get tips mainly on what would be the best equipment regarding...

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Hi Gabriel,

Our TagRanger Tags can be used for tracking turtles,  we already have a tracking project commencing soon in South America for ~40 turtles...

https://www.tagranger.com/  

The Tags use LoRaWAN allowing you to communicate with your Tags in real time.  As well as requesting current GPS locations from long distances away  (20km Line of Sight) you can also use the integrated ranging tools which give you distance to your Tag in metres when you get closer.  

Key features:

LoRaWAN (tested > 20km line of sight). Use a 'Finder' which is a handheld gateway or you can also use your own LoRaWAN network.

UWB ranging gives distance (in metres) to the Tag up to 150m away

Hybrid Ranging combines the equivalent of a VHF pinger from a few km away (line of sight) with the UWB ranging when you get closer

Log Download remotely using UWB radio

The Tag can last for very long lifetimes depending on how you configure it

Please drop me a line if you are interested in hearing more about this and how we could configure it best for your application.

Craig

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discussion

non-invasive technique to apply GPS collars without catching?

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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A lorawan based tracker here:



 

I would expect, but don't know, that a lorawan one should be able to have a longer range and lifetime based on the amount of power needed to reliably transmit the data. Sorry, for some reason this posted twice, can't find a delete button.

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discussion

Data Logger Suggestions

Hello, I have been using a data logger in my tag that doesn't seem to be working for our needs any longer. I was wondering if anyone might be able to suggest one they use and...

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Hi Andrea,

The OpenLog Artemis might be an option. I haven't used one of these yet, but its what I immediately thought of. Built in real time clock and IMU that records to microSD. It has four 14-bit ADCs and I2C connectors for the 'Qwiic' or 'grove' sensor boards. I'm not sure if it has programmable on/off cycles with the clock but you may find an existing project that does this. 

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discussion

Seeking advice for remotely retrieving high frequency acceleration data 

Hi everyone! I'm currently working with a small team to develop and deploy custom affordable trackers for crocodiles, and I'm wondering if anyone has advice regarding data...

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Hi Maggie!

This sounds like a really interesting - and challenging project!

UHF is used for tranfer of acceleration data (along with other stuff like magnetometry and GNSS locations) by systems developed by companies like Milsar and TechnoSmart

Ceres Wild uses satellite transfer over the GlobalStar but no raw acceleration data is transmitted.

I would fear the bandwidth would be too restrictive if you insist in using satellite based transfer of accelerometry.

Cheers,

Lars

This sounds like a lot of fun!

The lowest cost satellite comm I know of is https://swarm.space/.  It's pretty cool tech, but the data rates are quite low.

Do you have any idea how much data you need to move per day on average?

Perhaps LoRa would be an option?  Here is an example of a LoRa device https://www.adafruit.com/product/4284

LoRa is not satellite, but it has quite a long range which may suffice?  It is also pretty low data rate, but it is a good deal better than Swarm.  The best thing about LoRa is that the end-point can be very low power, so battery life can be quite good.

If you know somewhere the crocs frequent, you might also be able to work something out with Bluetooth LE?  Both LoRa and Bluetooth would require the installation of at least one base station.  Lora's base station could be substantially further way.

I have a few suggestions Maggie. Hopefully one or more will be useful. 

Preprocessing - Compressing the data before transmission will reduce file size and reduce transmission time.

Reduce data volume - I guess the animals are only active for some periods and a lot of the time are just "cruising along". So a useful strategy could be to only start recording when a certain threshold of acceleration occurs. And if you also buffer the data for say 10 seconds, you will get info about what's leading up to the activity. And adding a GPS module you will get some info on where the activity occurred plus movements prior. This will of course increase the data volume but only recording the most recent location will probably suffice as the location of the previous activity will tell you how far the animal moved.

Use LoRa instead of satellite - LoRa is well suited to this type of application. I saw in 

that the home range of crocodiles is relatively small so although a forested area will limit LoRa performance, the range should be sufficient. You could also use multiple base stations if needed. 

Of course eventually the data that has been recorded at the LoRa base station(s) will need to be collected. You could add a long range radio to the base station, or just collect the data 'manually'.

Hope this helps

 

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discussion

Passionate engineer offering funding and tech solutions pro-bono.

My name is Krasi Georgiev and I run an initiative focused on providing funding and tech solutions for stories with a real-world impact. The main reason is that I am passionate...

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Hi Krasi! Greetings from Brazil!



That's a cool journey you've started! Congratulations. And I felt like theSearchLife resonates with the work I'm involved round here. In a nutshell, I live at the heart of the largest remaining of Atlantic forest in the planet - one of the most biodiverse biomes that exist. The subregion where I live is named after and bathed by the "Rio Sagrado" (Sacred River), a magnificent water body with a very rich cultural significance to the region (it has served as a safe zone for fleeing slaves). Well, the river and the entire bioregion is currently under the threat of a truly devastating railroad project which, to say the least is planned to cut through over 100 water springs! 



In face of that the local community (myself included) has been mobilizing to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully stop this madness (fueled by strong international forces). One of the ways we've been fighting this is through the seeking of the recognition of the sacred river as an entity of legal rights, who can manifest itself in court, against such threats. And to illustrate what this would look like, I've been developing this AI (LLM) powered avatar for the river, which could maybe serve as its human-relatable voice. An existing prototype of such avatar is available here. It has been fine-tuned with over 20 scientific papers on the Sacred River watershed.



And right now myself and other are mobilizing to manifest the conditions/resources to develop a next version of the avatar, which would include remote sensing capacities so the avatar is directly connected to the river and can possibly write full scientific reports on its physical properties (i.e. water quality) and the surrounding biodiversity. In fact, myself and 3 other members of the WildLabs community have just applied to the WildLabs Grant program in order to accomplish that. Hopefully the results are positive.



Finally, it's worth mentioning that our mobilization around providing an expression medium for the river has been multimodal, including the creation of a shortfilm based on theatrical mobilizations we did during a fest dedicated to the river and its surrounding more-than-human communities. You can check that out here:



 

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/850179762



 

Let's chat if any of that catches your interest!

Cheers!

Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.
It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the Philipines which also requires water analytics so I can probably work on both projects at the same time.

Let's that have a call and discuss, will send you a pm with my contact details

There is a tech glitch and I don't get email notifications from here.

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discussion

Questions regarding the use of solar panels to extend battery life of GPS collars

Hey!If anyone here has had any experience using solar panels to extend the battery life of their tracking collars, I would love to hear from you! How effective was the...

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Lars,

As always, your insights are great! The GPS Plus X battery life calculator is great! I've downloaded it and have been toying around with it, very convenient when thinking about sampling schedules. Curious as to why more tech developers don't incorporate something similar into their own programming/analysis software. Very useful.

I've got a few meetings set up with a couple different tech developers, but may reach to Vectronic here. At first glance, their collars seem great! I appreciate the recommendations.

 

I must admit, I am not well versed in Python, but I am looking into something that wold be the R equivalent. If I don't have much luck, I may try and take a look at how that package was made in Python and attempt to recreate it in R.

 

You're the best Lars! Thanks!

 

Cheers,

Travis

Hi Bill,

I don't believe I will need them to be extremely accurate, but will need a good degree of accuracy for some behavioral classification and habitat use analyses. In regards to the solar, tracking the solar cycle is a great suggestion. I have also considered having some thresholds programmed in the accelerometer to power off both sensors during periods of sleep/rest in order to conserve battery life. I did this same thing in my last study for the GPS only, so there wouldn't be instances where the trackers continued to try and unsuccessfully acquire GPS fixes while the bats where inside their caves resting. After the bat's surge axis dropped into the -1 and there was 10 unsuccessful GPS fix attempts in a row, the GPS powered down.

 

Thanks for the suggestions and insights Bill!

 

Best,

Travis

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discussion

Cat Island, Bahamas biologger recovery

Hi everyone,A random request to see if any WILDLAB members may live in, or near the Bahamas on the off chance that you could help to recover one of our plastic...

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Were you guys able to recover the tag? @Alasdair 

Hi Alasdair,

I am also curious with the result, were you able to recover the tag? Also is there any that ended up in Indonesia sea? We would love to help the recovery if any.

Cheers,

Dhanu

Hi @ThomasGray_Argos, @YvanSG  and @hjayanto,

Thank you all for getting in touch. Luckily the Cat Island Institute via YME Bahamas got in touch and prepared an expedition to recover it. They couldn't access the beach during the first attempt, but a second attempt is planned. I'll hopefully be able to recover it shortly. 

Thanks again,

Alasdair

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discussion

Open-source kinetic energy harvesting collar - Kinefox

Hello everyone,I ran across an article today (at the bottom) that talks about an open-source, kinetic energy harvesting collar ("Kinefox"). It sounds pretty neat...anyways,...

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This is super cool! 

I was wondering if the development will further touch marine or aquatic animals, make it like water wheel (even might give burden to aerodynamic). Thank you for sharing!

Best,

Dhanu

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discussion

How to build my VHF tags from the scratch?

Hi all, I was wondering if anybody has experience in building VHF-tags from the scratch. I couldn't find useful instructions online, so maybe anybody wants to share own...

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discussion

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

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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