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

R package for triangulation?

What R packages are you using for wildlife radio-telemetry triangulation these days? Seems there are a few available (I last used sigloc in 2016, but its no longer on CRAN)....

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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 practices and future opportunities (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.6216).

This paper used Sound Finder -- Validation of an Acoustic Location System to Monitor Bornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) Long Calls (https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22398)

And this one used a MATLAB script -- Tracking cryptic animals using acoustic multilateration: A system for long-range wolf detection (https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5092973)

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discussion

Creating a global database for drift data from pop-up satellite tags

Hello all, My name is Arnault Le Bris and I am a research scientist at the Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. I have been working for several...

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You could use Movebank for this, stream the data into a study, manage sharing settings to make some public and keep others private if needed.  Lots of non-bird data in there!

Cheers

Roland

You might also check out the Ocean Data Platform team at https://www.oceandata.earth/  They're trying to be a one-stop shop for ocean data and have recently ingested all the IOC data. EMODNet has an ingestion portal and data ambassadors who can negotiate data sharing agreements and anonymization/aggregation. Also @ThomasGray_Argos  data sharing agreements and data governance is something I work on and would be interested in talking more about the privacy/user data issues you mention. I;ve been thinking about the need for a data intermediary that can hold data safely, scrub PII, and then share it with open platforms so each sensor owner or small entitty doesn't have to negotiate their own data sharing licenses.

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discussion

Otter survival monitoring

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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article

WWF: Carnivore Collaring in Zambia

World Wildlife Fund
In this article, WWF's Whitney Kent discusses how radio collaring carnivores like lions and African wild dogs helps prevent human-wildlife conflict by acting as warning devices for communities and monitoring species'...

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event

Event: The 7th International Bio-Logging Symposium

International Bio-logging Society
Submit your abstract by May 16, 2021 to participate in the 7th International Bio-Logging Symposium, held virtually this year and hosted from Honolulu, Hawaii on October 18th - 22nd. Find more details about abstract...

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discussion

Machine learning for animal tracking Kaggle competition?

Hello everyone,  My name is Kieran Garvey and I work with Cambridge Spark - a specialist AI and Data Science education provider. https://cambridgespark.com/ We are...

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Hi,

I have plenty of data which is not (yet) available to everyone. If still relevant, please contact me for more details.

[email protected]

What kind of data are you looking for? Like just lat/long coordinates, GPS points, .shp files, etc.? I have a small amount of GPS data from focal follows of lemurs (+ behavioral context/individual ID/subgroup, etc.) over a 3 month period. It's not published as I'm only using it in conjunction with a vocal dataset I'm working with. But I imagine you're probably after much larger datasets? 

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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discussion

GPS tag modification

Any hardware engineers in here that can provide support with modifying GPS tags for pangolins? I will be deploying GPS tags on white-bellied pangolins and need to modify the point...

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Hi Carl,

Thanks, I think I see what you mean.  I would probably do as you have done, glue the tag onto a fibreglass plate, and screw that plate onto a scale.  For glue, silicone caulking or epoxy putty can be used, my preference would be caulking because it's easier to extricate the tag from it when the time comes.

As for the mounting plate, my preference is fibreglass of the sort used in electronics, as this can be glued to.  For making the screw holes, if you have trouble with them splintering, I've heard that you can melt a clean hole using a heated iron nail, instead of drilling.

Thanks,

-harold

Hi Carl, 

Is there any reason you cannot screw the GPS unit directly to a scale through the three existing holes? You could use a quick setting glue between the scale and GPS, not for strength but to ensure there is nothing that can get between the scale and GPS to bust it off. Maybe quick set epoxy but even just gap filler might do the job.

I just realised how old this thread is so maybe you have already solved the issue.

Matthew

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 I am sure would ensure I can retrieve them. 

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article

Interview: Protecting Vultures with Telemetry

Dr. Corinne Kendall
In this interview with Dr. Corinne Kendall of the North Carolina Zoo, Dr. Kendall shares  how telemetry studies can help prevent vulture poisoning in East Africa, the conservation technology she uses in her work, and...

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discussion

Heat shrinking "stuff" to collars

Hello all, I wonder if anyone has experience they would share on heat shrinking "stuff" to animal telemetry collars. I guess some types of heat shrink will be...

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Hi Lars,

I'm currently heat shrinking transmitters to make a simple pouch to hold a transmitter to an ear tag. Because I want to prevent damage to the ear as much as possible, I figured it was desirable to have a material that would break before the ear does but I have not put this to the test. Two units deployed so far without an issue except for an intermittent fault with one of the transmitters. Hopefully not caused by the heatshrink. I think the biggest issue with heat-shrinking to a collar is that the heatshrink goes hard (at least the stuff I used) and will pull the collar toward the shape of the hard object you are attaching. A bit of preplanning and adding the desired shape before applying the heat should resolve that.

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funding

Funding Opportunity: COVID-19 Science Fund

National Geographic
National Geographic is offering funding up to up to $50,000 for conservationists conducting research on how the pandemic has impacted wildlife and conservation work.  If you are interested in researching aspects of the...

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discussion

Getting VHF transmitters in a quick turnaround time

Hi everyone,  Due to an unfortunate series of events, I need to get 25 x VHF transmitters (just the pingers - no collar) on a single frequency in around a 4 week...

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Hi Kas,

Advanced Telemetry Systems has been able to get me transmitters in less than 4 weeks a few times.  It does depend on how busy they are, though, so not guaranteed.

Good luck,

Kyler

Hi Kyler, 

That's great! Thank you for the lead - I'll get in touch with them asap.

Cheers, and all the best, 

Kas

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discussion

What to consider when planning our project for endangered, rarely seen species

Hi all, We currently have 12 camera traps deployed in key areas within a National Park to monitor our target species (an endangered thrush), the locations are meant to be...

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https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rse2.191

This paper may be of interest! 

And the latest Oryx edition is all camera-trap papers - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/issue/4E2CEA9634F17EEBB58E5A871ABB21CA

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discussion

Gunshot detector on elephant tracking collars

Hello all! I ju st read this article on a new type of tracking collar to be deployed on elephants that can detect gunshots. Have any of you heard of this kind of tech integration...

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discussion

Animal location and activity tracking devices – could these be useful for conservation studies?

I have been working on sensors for remote tracking of livestock activity and location. They work in enclosed environments or for large areas. It feels like this technology could...

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Hi!

I am in the process of creating remote tracking devices to study activity and social behavior in lemurs. I would be happy to chat and learn more about your study system / try to offer any insight about tracking devices.

-Meredith 

LoRa based cattle tracking tags made by Moovement are used for bison in the US by Hila Shamon.

Their biggest limitation as I see it is that they need continous connection to the LoRa stations as they do not log locations.

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discussion

Internship opportunities for PhD students

Hi everyone,  I am a 2nd-year Ph.D. student from the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (EEB) program at the University of Minnesota. Unlike lots of Ph.D. students in my...

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Hi Dennis,

I actually work in the graduate career center at my university (my fellowship is doing that rather than teaching) and this is what we specialize in! I too am a PhD student moving out of academia after the PhD. Many of our office's online resources are applicable to any PhD student, not just those at the CUNY (City University of New York) Graduate Center. Check it out: cuny.is/careerplan. I'm also happy to chat or answer any questions. The Wildlabs 'Resources' page is a great place to look for internship opportunities! I would also highly recommend getting a Twitter if you don't already have one, and utilizing that. There are a bunch of hashtags (#PhDchat, #altac, etc.) that may be helpful to watch for, and then you can also follow org's so you can see when they post opportunities. 

Hope this helps! 

All the best,

Carly

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event

Workshop: Analyses of acoustic telemetry data with R

European Tracking Network
Join the European Tracking Network on January 18th 2021 at 2 PM Central European Time (1 PM GMT) for a free workshop on standardized analyses of acoustic telemetry data using the R packages actel and RSP!  The actel...

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article

Sustainable Fishing Challenges: Fish Catch Monitoring

Daniel Steadman
As we launch our new Sustainable Fishing Challenges group in the WILDLABS community, we are excited to welcome Daniel Steadman, the group manager, to give us an overview of three major areas in which #tech4wildlife...

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event

Event: Wildlife Drones at ESA20

Wildlife Drones
Join Wildlife Drones at this week's Ecological Society of Australia conference! Learn about their work at the Windows into Resilience and Recovery Symposium on Wednesday, 2nd December, and participate in their virtual...

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event

Making the Most of Tech Tutors Season 2!

WILDLABS Team
WILDLABS is celebrating its five year anniversary! Throughout the rest of 2020, we'll be sharing articles, community features, and case studies showcasing the incredible projects, collaborations, and successes that this...

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article

Introducing the Arctic Animal Movement Archive

Movebank
Introducing Movebank's Arctic Animal Movement Archive (AAMA), a collection of studies containing animal movement and other animal-borne sensor data from the Arctic and Subarctic. Through this collection of 214 studies ...

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event

Weekly Event: OTN Virtual Study Hall

Ocean Tracking Network
Do you track ocean species and want to meet others who are working together to solve marine conservation's big issues with telemetry? Join the Ocean Tracking Network's weekly Virtual Study Halls, taking place every...

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discussion

California Condor Conservation - Tech & Resources

Edit: The first part of our condor feature is now live! Read it on our blog here. Hi Wildlabbers, Today we'll be sharing our first of two features on...

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Hi all,

Just wanted to share some info about VWS's virtual chat series, if you're interesting in hearing the latest condor news about wildfire recovery efforts, how the fires impacted their camera systems, tracking, etc., and about the condor chicks who were rescued from the fires. 

The next chat is on November 19th at 4 PM PST, and you can register here. They also have an archive of past recorded chats, including a very cool #tech4wildlife one on condor photography! 

-Ellie

Thanks Ellie - I signed up : ) 

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article

Hackathon Opportunity: Vaquita Hacks

The Conservation Project International
Do you have innovative #tech4wildlife ideas that could save one of the most endangered species on earth from extinction? Apply now to join Vaquita Hack, a hackathon for students and early career conservationists!  This...

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discussion

Drop off pods on collars

Hi all, I know there are various drop off mechanisms for collars, with time releases, remotely triggered or through wear and tear. However, all of the ones I find (Lotek,...

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Thanks for the details Thomas. I am fairly happy with the nichrome release mechanism we use, but it's always good to have alternatives, and the explosive approach could be much more useful for others. Appreciate all the information. 

Cheers,

Rob

Yup - my pleasure. 

Thanks Thomas. The option of desertstar seems strong, and it needs to be strong for the animals I work with (large carnivores). Indeed the pod would need to be designed to fit the collar type, but that's not impossible.

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discussion

Tech Tutors: How do I use a drone to capture radio-tracking data?

Hi Wildlabbers,  We hope you enjoyed our seventh WILDLABS Tech Tutor episode, featuring Debbie Saunders, who tackled the...

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Hi Wildlabbers,

What a great episode and Q&A!! We had SO many questions for Debbie that we couldn't get to all of them during the stream. If you have follow-up questions about tracking wildlife with drones, be sure to ask them here and we'll pass them along to Debbie. You can also see all of the questions from the session here in our collaborative document, which also has resources and a log of the chat!

We'll be posting the full tutorial and Q&A video here tomorrow, so if you missed the episode, you'll be able to catch up soon.

Thanks to everyone who came to this episode, and we hope to see you again next week!

-Ellie

Hi all,

Firstly, I'd just like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended my Tech Tutors presentation last month. And secondly, thank you for your patience in allowing me to respond to your questions. If you have any further questions, please feel free to post them on the forum here or email me ([email protected]). I would love to hear from you!

Cheers,

Debbie

Tech Tutors Q&A:

Carlos: I have one single question today: is Debbie or someone using fully autonomous drones in their projects? No human control ever? Here, they are banned, even in non-populated areas.

Debbie: Our first research prototypes were autonomous (Cliff et al. 2015; 2018), however it had to be able to be controlled manually if needed to comply with flight regulations.

However, the autonomous nature of that prototype meant that it wasn’t able to be readily adapted for use on a diversity of drone platforms as more advanced systems became available, and also recognised that wildlife researcher’s primary need was for a tracking system in the air rather than a robotic tracking system.  However, one day we hope to again be able to integrate our system into large-scale fully autonomous monitoring programs.  With our current system, once you are provided with bearings to all tags within range you can begin to make decisions about where the next best place to go is to get the most effective intersecting bearing lines.

Cliff, O. Saunders, D. and Fitch, R. (2018) Robotic Ecology: Tracking Small Dynamic Animals with an Autonomous Aerial Vehicle. Science Robotics Vol. 3, Issue 23, eaat8409.

Cliff, O., Fitch, R., Sukkarieh, S., Saunders, D.L. and Heinsohn, R. (2015).  Online localisation of radio-tagged wildlife with an autonomous aerial robot system.  Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems 2015, Rome, Italy, July.

 

Sol Milne: Amazing work! Has this worked for small, below skin tracking tags?

Debbie: Our system can track any very-high frequency (VHF) radio-tag from any tag manufacturer globally. This includes VHF-tags that are designed to be inserted under the animal’s skin. We have tested Giant Armadillo implant tags previously and have even been able to detect them from when they were 3 metres underground in a burrow (although they are actually pretty big tags!).  The effect of having an implanted tag is the same for both drone and manual tracking – with no whip antenna the detection distance is shorter but it can typically still be detected.

 

Julian Dale: Can you provide a cost for your system? We are developing a system for a longer endurance fixed wing aircraft VTOL (2-4hr endurance) to cover large areas and with full autonomy. I would be interested to chat more about a collaboration if you are interested?

Debbie: Absolutely interested Julian! We definitely have both a fixed wing VTOL and full autonomy on our roadmap – it’s just a matter of getting to it.  Please do get in touch ([email protected]) to discuss further and we can also give you some specific pricing for your project needs.

 

Julian Dale: Would it be possible to combine two antenna and SDR's to cover a wider swath on a fixed wing?

Debbie: This certainly may be possible, but it would need to be thoroughly tested with both the pros & cons considered, such as extra complexity in the code, extra hardware housing and integration etc.

 

Paul: Q about RF (RT?)- have you looked into using Bluetooth Low Energy or LoRa instead of VHF? Bluetooth or Lora Gateway on the drone would look for signals, vast amount lighter - but not sure about range, hence my question, thank you all the same.

Debbie: When developing our system we decided that rather than trying to invent a new type of miniature tag which has it’s own inherent challenges, we wanted to develop a better way to detect and track VHF tags that are already used all around the world.  Having said this, we have explored various alternatives in terms of communications and data transfer such as LoRa but found our setup to perform more reliably and to have much greater communication ranges (tested for real time data feeds out to 2.5km currently).

 

Arky: Wonder if this system could be adapted for fixed wing drones / Vertical take-off and land (VTOL) systems that could be useful in some use-cases.

Debbie: Yes, it can be. We are currently in the process of exploring the best way for our system to be adapted onto a fixed-wing drone platform and it is a key part of our development roadmap. We can see many advantages and applications for using fixed-wing drones – especially as they are typically able to search much larger areas!

 

Rob: Hi Debbie, this system is amazing! I am so with Steph (what I could've done with this 10 or 15 years ago)! I was wondering, can your system work with SensorGnome-style coded VHF tags?

Debbie: The key issue with tracking coded tags using our system is that they are all on the same frequency.  Our system works by finding the maximum signal for each unique frequency so having lots of tags in all different directions but with the same frequency wouldn’t work.  Having said this, I have wondered whether we would be able to ramp up the interrogation of coded tag signals, detect them all and decode them on the fly so that they can be located. But I’m sure my tech team would roll their eyes at me over that one since I am sure it would quite challenging to do.  But if you have any good ideas on how this may be achieved we’d be happy to give it a shot!

 

Sophie: Provided an Argos goniometer on board the drone, you could detect the animal equipped with an Argos tag as well?

Debbie: I’m not sure exactly what signals the goniometer is detecting, however if the Argos tag (or any other tag) includes a standard VHF radio signal as a back up option in case the tag fails then we can track it with our system regardless of who the tag manufacturer is.  This may not work if they don’t use VHF radio-signals.

 

Sophie: Do you have a system to recover the drone in case of loss?

Debbie: If you wanted to put a radio-tag on your drone as well as on your animals, then our system could certainly track them both as long as they are within the detection range of the tag. The detection range varies depending on size, with small tags having shorter detection distances.

 

Pascal: Have you tried/considered using an automatic direction finder system (which can 'virtually rotate' its beam direction using a phased array of multiple antennas)? And/or continuously recording the received radio signal for (additional) later offline analysis?

Debbie: Yes indeed, we have considered and explored both of these options. The use of a phase array creates many interesting hardware and software challenges when considering a lightweight, robust system that can be used on a drone, and although there could certainly be benefits in such a system we found that the costs generally outweighed the benefits.  In terms of collecting data and processing it later, this is currently possible as well as real time data collection. However one of the key advantages of our current system is that you are not “flying blind” since you can see exactly what signals you are/aren’t picking up and their directions which means that your data collection is much more targeted and effective.

 

Melissa: How does the drone work in high wind? What is the max wind speed you can fly it in? Also, what was the updated the flight time after your initial troubleshooting (if it got better than 10 minutes)?

Debbie: The system can work in high wind but the error margins around estimated locations will be larger due to the buffeting effect of the wind on the magnetometer which provides the bearings.  If all you want to see is that you can detect your animals wind wouldn’t matter too much, but if you are aiming to get accurate locations you will find they will have larger errors than if you flew in calmer conditions.  If it is really windy and the drone is working really hard to maintain it’s location you will also notice that it can tilt quite a lot and so in this case the antenna may be pointing at the sky instead of across the landscape and so would be less likely to detect tags.  It’s always a good idea to fly within the recommended wind speed rating of your drone (from memory the DJI Matrice 210 recommended max wind speed is 10 m/s.

 

Julian: Can you tune your system to cope with radio interference from different aircraft? [ STEPH: is this duke julian? If so - we might hold this question]

Debbie: Not exactly sure what interference from different aircraft you are referring to sorry, but dealing with radio-interference is certainly one of the greatest challenges when listening for low powered tags in our noisy radio world!  However, we do have a nice combination of hardware and software that enable us to eliminate or manage a range of different potential interferers both within and outside of the target frequency bands.

 

Liam: You mentioned earlier that you were interested in the migration routes of the parrots - have you tested the use of your system for migration pathways in any other species? And how do you work with the battery limitations?

Debbie: We haven’t had the opportunity to use our system to understand the full migratory pathways of swift parrots yet since we are currently unable to use long-term attachments on this species so we have had to focus on tracking them within their winter range instead – but we’re super keen to get there one day! We haven’t tested it along migration pathways as such, but rather we have tracked other migratory species within their winter foraging range. Would be great fun to try tracking along an entire migratory path though!

 

Miguel: Drones are usually very noisy. Don't animals run away when they hear the drone? Or does it fly high enough that it doesn't disturb the animals? How high can it fly while being able to get the data?

Debbie: Radio-tracking from a drone is less disruptive to most species compared to manually radio-tracking on foot, or using other drone sensors like visual or thermal cameras. This is because our system doesn’t require you to fly directly above or in close proximity of the animals you are tracking in order to get their location. Our system detects signals from distance, determines bearings and then triangulates the animal’s location. Filghts are generally limited to below 120m however we typically fly at around 40m or so depending on the height of the vegetation (at least this is the specific regulation height in Australia).

 

Isla Duporge: Thanks Ellie, I was just wondering how many have been made, cost of hiring and whether there is the intention to be able to sell them to researchers.

Debbie: So far we have made 30 of these systems and we are happy to provide you with specific costing details for your project if you would like to get in touch ([email protected] ). They are only available for hire, not to buy, but unlike most equipment hire arrangements, we provide full technical support for you and your team should you need any help or guidance. Also, given the tech is advancing all the time, if you have a long term project we will upgrade your system each year with the latest model!

 

Phoebe Griffith: Similar question to above, I was wondering if they might be possible to purchase (rather than hire) for long term tracking projects (we track animals for 2+ years), and if so what the approx costs are?

Debbie:

Same response as above:

We are happy to provide you with specific costing details for your project if you would like to get in touch ([email protected] ). They are only available for hire, not to buy, but unlike most equipment hire arrangements, we provide full technical support for you and your team should you need any help or guidance. Also, given the tech is advancing all the time, if you have a long term project we will upgrade your system each year with the latest model!

 

Rob: Have you had a chance to look at using tags/untagged animals for abundance (e.g. koalas) or survival studies, as your drones can cover so much area

Debbie: Yes, so we are currently in the process of using both thermal and radio-tracking drone technology to find both tagged and untagged animals at the same site. We recognise that not all animals can be tagged and have found that thermal technology can help fill that gap. The great thing about drones is that they are capable of carrying multiple sensors, allowing you to collect a diverse range of data.

 

Sean: Are you using an "off the shelf" flight platform or is it bespoke?

Debbie: Our system is able to be mounted onto off-the-shelf drone platforms that can carry a 1kg payload, such as the DJI Matrice 210 and similar models.

 

Carly: Also, this might be a stupid question, but can these things go up at night? E.g. tracking nocturnal animals.

Debbie: No such thing as a stupid question! They are all good! Drones can certainly be flown at night to track nocturnal animals. However, it should be noted that in most places, you’ll need to be a licensed drone pilot and have special authorisation to fly at night. We recommend that you check your local area’s drone rules and regulations for more information on this before you fly.

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article

Icarus Starts First Global Research Project

Icarus
We've got exciting news from the Icarus project, a satellite-based animal monitoring system: following a successful test phase this year, the first cross-continental scientific pilot project is set to begin this...

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article

Meet the Scientists of Black Mammalogists Week!

Black Mammalogists Week
To celebrate the first Black Mammalogists Week (starting Sunday, September 13th), we talked to four of the amazing Black scientists behind this event! Find out what they had to say about their favorite (and most...

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