Wildlife tracking technologies have already massively advanced our understanding of the natural world, from uncovering previously mysterious migration patterns and key movement corridors to demonstrating the impacts of anthropogenic pressures and climate change. Recent advances in the development of technologies for collecting and transmitting biologging data have unlocked the potential for fine-scale data collection at a near-global scale, which when integrated with remotely sensed environmental data offers an unprecedented biological lens into ecosystem health and environmental change (Jetz et al. 2022).
New technologies on the horizon include small satellites like CubeSats, which are being investigated by NASA, the ICARUS Initiative's satellite system, and a variety of other ventures aiming to improve the coverage, accuracy, and capacity of wildlife tracking data collection. Combined with the increased availability of high-resolution environmental data and analytical developments in movement modeling, these advancements are empowering movement ecologists to ask previously unanswerable or unimaginable questions. It’s clear that this discipline sits at the precipice of major breakthroughs that could revolutionize our understanding of animal movement and the natural world.
June 2024
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November 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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We are still running this grant program albeit with subtle changes to improve the hardware/service agreement (in your favor). If you want to build your own tag, have a... |
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Biologging | 1 year 5 months ago | |
Hi Truphena, Firetail is designed with animal telemetry in mind. But, you could import any kind of data that features latitute, longitude and some kind of ID (plus whatever... |
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Biologging | 1 year 7 months ago | |
I'm co-developing SnapperGPS as part of my PhD. We're currently working on getting a release on GroupGets. Everything is moving a little slowly because of the chip... |
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Biologging | 1 year 9 months ago | |
Hi everyone, I am new to animal movement tracking technologies. I have only dealt with telemetry data collected by others (never... |
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Biologging | 1 year 9 months ago | |
Hi Wildlabbers! We're very excited for our final episode of Tech Tutors Season 3 tomorrow 4th November at 12 PM... |
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Biologging | 2 years ago | |
Hi Everyone, I realize I'm late to the game here, but I came across this forum and I think I can help you in a way. I own... |
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Biologging | 2 years 3 months ago | |
Hi Biologging People, I am new to WILDLABS and excited to be here! I am researching the behavioural ecology of koalas in South... |
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Biologging | 2 years 3 months ago | |
This paper mentions some, and is just a great review on localization more broadly! I'd look into gibbonR and warbleR Acoustic localization of terrestrial wildlife: Current... |
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Biologging | 2 years 4 months ago | |
@skatewing Shoot me an email, and we can discuss ([email protected]). |
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Biologging | 2 years 5 months ago | |
I am wondering if anyone has ideas for river otter survival monitoring (no movement data needed) outside of implanted VHF transmitters.... |
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Biologging | 2 years 5 months ago | |
There are lots of data in Movebank that are not publically availalbe, all the grey dots in the search map. You can contact each data owner and arrange for access to the data... |
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Biologging | 2 years 7 months ago | |
Hi Matthew-- thanks. Very good suggestions. I am already going w the option of having the metal plate underneath. The tags cost a lot and I would rather go w the option that... |
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Biologging | 2 years 8 months ago |
Alternative trackers for study of grey parrots movement patterns
3 November 2023 7:31pm
24 November 2023 9:18am
Hi Thomas thank you for your recommendation.
Yeah getting an appropriate tag for the parrots has really been challenging
24 November 2023 9:20am
Hi Rob,
thank you for the recommendations. I will checkout both options and choose the one which will be well suited for my zone of studies.
Warm Regards, Benedicta
Automatic and open-source radio-tracking
15 November 2023 10:03am
20 November 2023 10:39am
Thanks for the information, I'm going to have a look and will keep you updated if I got any news.
23 November 2023 4:58pm
Hi @tutgut5 @Rob_Appleby
their system has been used in a research project at the University of Marburg (LOEWE-Schwerpunkt Natur 4.0), its also been used in combination with Infra-red videos of bat movements (BatRack). We cooperated with them in 2021 for a small telemetry study, it worked well for us, here is their homepage
(although I'm not sure how up to date it is), if you have questions and would like some more info about their system there is an email address to contact them at.
All the best,
Sarah
24 November 2023 6:22am
Thanks for the information @Sarita , very helpful indeed!!
Cheers,
Rob
ICOTEQ launch TAGRANGER® system of products
23 November 2023 1:25pm
How to Choose a Biologger - Tracking Endangered Seabirds with Yvan Satgé
23 November 2023 12:10pm
Firetail - Black Friday
What is your favorite package or software for visualizing animal tracking data?
12 September 2023 6:52pm
17 November 2023 1:19pm
Hello,
I am very interested in this topic. In particular with birds. I used Argos then exported to g and Qgis (Mexico dosnt use Arc too much). And Movebank but I am unsure if it comes without tracking devices. The data was interesting.
Please keep me updates.
Thank you for your time. I sometimes am late to reply as I am in the field a lot.
Saludos and cheers!!
Jennifer
17 November 2023 1:22pm
Is this just for PIT tags?
21 November 2023 8:56am
Hi Jennifer, Movebank can handle all kinds of location data, metadata or sensors (height, depth, speed, acceleration, IMU, heartrates) and Firetail ships with a module that can directly open Movebank data (your or other projects) and keep them up to date - most sensors will work out of the box.
If you have any specific questions or projects in mind, don't hesitate to contact me. Cheers, Tobias
Query regarding Biologgers for Freshwater crabs
16 November 2023 4:45am
18 November 2023 1:54am
Hi @Abinesh
I just did a quick literature search and couldn't find a great deal, which I expect is also the case for you. I did find this paper:

(PDF) An improved noninvasive method for measuring heartbeat of intertidal animals
PDF | Since its emergence two decades ago, the use of infrared technology for noninvasively measuring the heartbeat rates of invertebrates has provided... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

which might offer some ideas.
And this one too:

Temperature-related heart rate in water and air and a comparison to other temperature-related measures of performance in the fiddler crab Leptuca pugilator (Bosc 1802)
Performance in poikilotherms is known to be sensitive to temperature, often with a low-sloping increase with temperature to a peak, and a steep declin…
Details on the build are a little scant however, so perhaps you could write to the authors for some instructions? Also found this, and could be another person to contact:

How to listen to a crab’s heart, and other super useful skills
By Emily Dombrowski, College of Charleston The Approach: In my Previous Post, I discussed how horseshoe crabs play a vital role in human medicine and how the human harvesting industry affects crab …
On the temperature side of logging, and depending on weight restrictions, perhaps something like this:

SL52T / SL52T-A Miniature Temperature data logger (-40°C to +85°C with up to ±0.12°C Accuracy)
The SL52T is a self contained, multiple use, miniature temperature data logger with the ability to record up to 8,000 temperatures over the temperature range of -40°C to +85°C with an accuracy of ±0.5°C. The SL52T-A is supplied with a UKAS 17025 traceable calibration certificate and an improved accuracy of ±0.15°C over the range -20°C to +25°C.Calibration tolerances up to ±0.12°C are available up on request. Starter kits are available with either two or five SL52T or SL52T-A temperature data loggers, USB interface cable and the TempIT-PRO software. The SL52T is ideal for use when sample rates faster than 5 minutes are required. For applications where sample rates of 5 minutes or longer are required, consider using the SL56T / SL56T-A

There are similarly self-contained smaller(?) temperature loggers around but at a higher price:

Mini temperature data logger | Easily fit into the smallest spaces!
The MadgeTech MicroTemp is a mini temperature data logger fits inside bottles and cans, fully submersible up to 230 ft. (70 m).

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but if I find anything else, I'll post it here.
All the best,
Rob
18 November 2023 4:22pm
Hey Rob, actually this is of a great help. Thanks for posting these many stuff, and well it was nicely attached along with what you intend to convey. I appreciate your time and support. Il read them all with a proper seat once again. Hope something would turn up to do my study. Il post it if something turns up great. Thanks once again.
18 November 2023 10:37pm
My pleasure @Abinesh and if you have any more questions etc., don't hesitate to ask. This is a great community with plenty of smart cookies that can help and also me if I am able!
All the best for your research.
Rob
Animove 2024
17 November 2023 10:47am
Catch up with The Variety Hour: November 2023
16 November 2023 12:59pm
How to Choose a Biologger - Tracking Elephants with Neus Estela Ribera
16 November 2023 12:01pm
How to Choose a Biologger - Where do I start?
16 November 2023 12:00pm
Open-source kinetic energy harvesting collar - Kinefox
1 November 2023 5:31pm
3 November 2023 2:24pm
Hi Thomas !
Thanks for sharing! I know one of the Danish authors of the KInefox paper. It is very cool stuff and we hope to one day use something like this on muskoxen in Greenland.
Some of the limitations are obviously the relatively limited number of daily fixes. Also, we would probably need satellite based communication, but since the authors from Max Planck are also heavilly involved in the https://www.icarus.mpg.de/en project, I hope this kinetic energy harvesting gets incorporated in the satellite based ICARUS trackers one day.
The article you linked to refered to this paper with a dizzying list of recent energy harvesting studies:

Recent progress in energy harvesting systems for wearable technology
This paper provides a comprehensive review of the recent progress made in energy harvesting systems for wearable technology. An energy-harvesting syst…
It also seems well worth a look.
3 November 2023 3:11pm
This is very cool @ThomasGray_Argos !! I tried years ago to build a benchtop version of something similar, using a 'kinetic' torch assembly, but never got much further than some very crude designs. I even approached Seiko about their watch mechanisms, but in the they weren't interested...
It's really great to see this technology get applied and I hadn't heard of the Kinetron microgenerator the researchers used. They did a fantastic job designing their system and bonus points for releasing it all to open-source! The only thing I couldn't see were costs or a bill of materials (and I could've easily missed it), as I was keen to see how much the Kinetron microgenerator was. The hybrid capacitor they used was great value at AU$7.19.
My next project is to try harvesting radio waves using something like this:

AEM30940 Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting Power Management IC
RF energy harvesting IC AEM30940 is a new generation solution for harvesting radio frequency energy at ultra-low-power. We make your batteries last forever.

Urban environments might have enough ambient sources of radio waves that no additional transmission stations are needed, but for remote locations, purpose-built transmitters could work for critters that have defined, and relatively small home ranges.
Anyway Thomas, thanks heaps for sharing and very interesting and encouraging.
Rob
6 November 2023 3:47pm
It will be great if there were different plug-in boards that would allow the researcher to connect any form of communication: ICARUS, Argos, Iridium, Globalstar, GSM, etc. I think for an open-source product, it would be far more value to not self limit.
TWS2023 - get in touch
5 November 2023 8:13pm
5 November 2023 9:04pm
I'm registered with the TWS2023 app, so feel free to nudge me there as well
Digital Signals Processing - free online textbook
31 October 2023 1:50pm
I just discovered this freely available book on digital signal processing and love the fact that it is“…intended for students … who may not have much mathematical or engineering training.” Seems like a great resource for bioacoustics, biologing etc!
Movebank tutorial on uploads of tag acceleration and magnetometer data
27 October 2023 2:14pm
5 Trailblazing Wildlife Monitoring Tech Solutions across East Africa. What Monitoring Technologies are you using?
25 October 2023 12:40pm
Project Update: Improving satellite ear tag transmitters for Polar Bears
6 October 2023 1:42pm
7 October 2023 3:45pm
Just when I thought I couldn't get any stupider Steph...at least I am improving at something I guess...
13 October 2023 10:57am
Hey Rob! I also missed this variety hour thinking it was the next day. I enjoyed the recording on youtube though!
Your thoughts on distributing the components to both sides of the ear is interesting. One thing to consider is heat dessipation, I believe. I believe it is important to consider how heat conducting the part going through the ear is. A few cables would perhaps be OK. Ruggedness should have a very high priority and the more compact the device is the better, I would think.
Interesting stuff you shared about the antenna!
Cheers,
Lars
20 October 2023 3:00pm
Cheers @Lars_Holst_Hansen , yes, the antenna foam spacer idea certainly helped us a bit. I completely agree though that ruggedness, especially on a polar bear (a bit different from a koala 'bear') is a top priority, so there's a lot to consider.
Rob
PhD Opportunity - Causal inference and trial emulation for ecological observational data

20 October 2023 12:45pm
PhD Opportunity - Movement through space and time, realistic movement for species abundance methods

20 October 2023 12:33pm
Marine Flyways - Seabird Tracking Database
20 October 2023 12:23pm
To celebrate #WMBD, BirdLife is excited to share the newly identified Marine Flyways!! Seabird tracking data were shared by over 60 researchers from 48 long-distance migratory species and have revealed SIX MarineFlyways. They've created an awesome animation to go along with it!
What Biologgers are you using?
30 August 2023 10:44am
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?
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?
12 October 2023 12:24pm
Hey Stephanie,
Thanks a lot! Sorry I missed your message but of course I can ask our users about their experience with sensors!
Unravelling freshwater turtle activity with an open source, low-cost accelerometer
6 October 2023 1:04pm
Best Temperature/ Humidity Dataloggers
24 April 2023 1:30pm
11 September 2023 2:49pm
Heya Nick - ooh cool! We thought about the Kestrels but I had heard about some of the problems with them maxing out at 100. Have gone for HOBO Pro V2s
11 September 2023 2:51pm
Heya Matthew cheers for providing a comparison! We went with HOBO Pro V2s which are more expensive but have been working well so far!
23 September 2023 6:14am
Makes sense if you have the cash...
GPS-GSM Collar Recommendations?
6 September 2023 6:36pm
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!
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.
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).
Help finding goniometers for sat tag recovery at sea
8 June 2023 7:47pm
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.
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]
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.
Which market-available microphones, accelerometers and GIS sensors for dogs / pets ?
7 September 2023 3:21pm
11 September 2023 4:33pm
Hi Luigi!
You should have a look at the μMoth
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.

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 :
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.)

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.

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.

Reviewing Now: Animal Telemetry Postdoctoral Fellowship

24 August 2023 11:09pm
Mobile App. Developer / Gibbon Research
24 August 2023 9:59am
18 November 2023 2:18am
Hi @Benedicta
Does the area you are tracking in have cellphone reception? If so, something like this might be suitable (with a bit of modification to the housing):
Lightbug - Long battery, small, no subscription IoT
Tiny & powerful GPS Trackers with smartphone and web apps. Easily track and monitor pretty much anything! | Lightbug IoT - Small 4G GPS Trackers with the best battery life and no subscription
If there's no cellphone coverage, You might also be able to adapt these (or talk to the company about adapting them):
GPS ear tags for cattle tracking | mOOvement
The mOOvement GPS Ear Tags allow you to to track and trace your cattle over long distances
A note though that these rely on base stations to collect data.
All the best for your studies!
Cheers,
Rob