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.
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...
17 August 2023
WCS is seeking a Conservation Technology Specialist to join their work in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve.
11 August 2023
Article
A[n open source] system to remotely detach individual sensors from wildlife tracking collars
11 August 2023
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...
4 August 2023
Join us as we count down the WILDLABS community's honorees in the first-ever #Tech4Wildlife Community Choice Awards!
3 August 2023
"We integrated a Kinetron MSG32 microgenerator and a state-of-the-art lithium-ion capacitor (LIC) into a custom GPS-enabled tracking device that is capable of remotely transmitting data via the Sigfox ‘Internet of...
13 July 2023
Article
The tracking system has begun testing its new satellite receiver that will continue uninterrupted tracking of animals from space
13 July 2023
Spaceborne Satellite-tag RF Systems to Measure Spatiotemporal Patterns of Wildlife
12 July 2023
In this article from Alasdair Davies, he discusses how marine tracking's unique challenges could impact its potential for sustainability in the future.
12 July 2023
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...
22 June 2023
In this interview between Rob Appleby and Ellie Warren, we discuss the importance of DIY, recycling, and sharing tools in order to make our community more sustainable.
14 June 2023
Come work with us! WILDLABS and Fauna & Flora are seeking an intern to help develop the movement ecology content on the Inventory - our wiki-inspired database of conservation technology. Accepting applications until...
6 June 2023
April 2024
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June 2024
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November 2023
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GPS-GSM Collar Recommendations?
6 September 2023 6:36pm
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.
Reviewing Now: Animal Telemetry Postdoctoral Fellowship
24 August 2023 11:09pm
Mobile App. Developer / Gibbon Research
24 August 2023 9:59am
MoveApps: A Digital Home for Tracking Data Analysis
17 August 2023 7:47pm
RFID Smart traps
23 April 2021 9:10am
7 June 2022 12:47pm
Hi Caitlin,
you might also look at this RFID logger sold by Labmaker:
Greetings from Austria,
Robin
6 January 2023 8:56pm
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
Conservation Technology Specialist
11 August 2023 1:21am
SensorDrop
11 August 2023 12:18am
Firetail 11 - GPS and sensor analysis
18 July 2023 5:04pm
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
Firetail 11 released - for GPS and sensor analysis
10 August 2023 7:02pm
I wrote a short article on new features in Firetail 11. The most recent version (11.0.3) features some great performance improvements and also fully enables the new reporting module.
see also: https://wildlabs.net/discussion/firetail-11-gps-and-sensor-analysis
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge: Judges' Panel Honorees
4 August 2023 10:00am
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge: Community Choice Honorees
3 August 2023 10:00am
Workshop on the use of information and communications technology for conservation in Central Asia
1 August 2023 11:50pm
A novel kinetic energy harvesting system for lifetime deployments of wildlife trackers
13 July 2023 11:30am
ICARUS flies faster, further
13 July 2023 11:27am
Postdoc for electrical engineering at NASA
12 July 2023 12:08pm
Sustained Effort: Can We Improve the Sustainability of Marine Telemetry Tags?
12 July 2023 9:30am
Pangolin Tagging Challenges
11 January 2017 11:22pm
21 April 2023 2:04pm
Hi - Operation Pangolin is exploring conservation technologies for Pangolins, here's a link to the project: Operation Pangolin launches to save world's most trafficked wild mammal | WILDLABS
Let's keep in touch!
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.
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!
Osa Conservation: A Multi-Tech Toolbox of Solutions
22 June 2023 10:42am
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Sustained Effort: Out with the New, In with the Old
14 June 2023 10:00am
movedesign: a tool to evaluate sampling design in biologging
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.
Wildlife tracking collar powers itself as animals roam
12 June 2023 8:27am
This article introduces an innovation in wildlife tracking, where researchers have developed a tracker powered by the movement of animals themselves, eliminating the need for battery replacements and allowing for long-term monitoring.
WILDLABS Conservation Tech Intern (The Inventory)
6 June 2023 10:43am
GPS collars are helping save Sumatra’s last wild elephants
28 May 2023 6:20pm
Rimba Satwa Foundation (RSF), an Indonesian elephant conservation NGO, is employing GPS collars on elephants to mitigate human-elephant conflicts. RSF aims to enhance collar usage, surveillance, and automation for sustained effectiveness in the long run.
Filter Last X Positions
23 May 2023 4:41pm
Filter Last X Locations - is a new super simple but super powerful moveapp.
https://moveapps.org/apps/browser/ebe11063-fd98-4d8d-a22d-f143ec434b6f
I will be using this to send me the latest positions of all active muskox collars via low bandwidth email while in the field (basically off the grid).
Animal tracking stories
22 May 2023 2:19am
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!