Animal migration tracking
Animal migration tracking is used in
Technologies
In the fall of 1803, American Naturalist John James Audubon wondered whether migrating birds returned to the same place each year. So he tied a string around the leg of a bird before it flew south. The following spring, Audubon saw the bird had indeed come back.
Scientists today still attach tags, such as metal bands, to track movement of animals. Metal bands require the re-capture of animals for the scientists to gather data; the data is thus limited to the animal's release and destination points.
Recent technologies have helped solve this problem. Some electronic tags give off repeating signals that are picked up by radio devices or
Radio tracking
Another form of radio tracking that can be utilized, especially in the case of small bird migration, is the use of
Motus wildlife tracking network is a program by Birds Canada, it was launched in 2014 in the US and Canada, by 2022 there are more than 40,000 transmitters on various animals, mostly birds, and 1,500 receiver stations have been installed in 34 countries, most receivers are concentrated in the United States and Canada.
Satellite tracking
Receivers can be placed in
IoT Tracking
IoT or the internet of things proves to be a potential resource for the future of wildlife tracking and research. This technology can range from Low Power Wide Area LWPA sensor networks attached to wildlife by safe adhesive to Cameras connected to the internet using machine learning to determine what images are interesting and categorize the photos. With LWPA, the applications are endless. All that needs to be done is to develop the sensors that attach to any animal. With the sensor's low power, changing the sensors’ batteries becomes less of a problem. The program Where's The Bear is a wildlife monitoring software by the Computer Science Department at the University of California Santa Barba. They use cameras as their sensors and machine learning to quantify the photos into empty pictures triggered by wind and rain. They are instead reporting those of different species of animals. To make the training process of the algorithm rapid, they used edited photos with animals inserted in the shot of the given sensors view to sense the different animals. This training was able to make the technology more accurate with fewer false positives and false negatives. This method increased the ability to categorize animals’ photos, proving a potential new technology for vast groups of people for commercial and public use
Stable isotopes
Stable isotopes are one of the intrinsic markers used for studying migration of animals.[11] One of the benefits of intrinsic markers in general, including stable isotope analysis, is that it does not require an organism to be captured and tagged and then recaptured at a later time. Each capture of an organism provides information on where it has been based on diet. The three types of intrinsic markers that can be used as tools for animal migration studies are: (1) contaminants, parasites and pathogens, (2) trace elements, and (3) stable isotopes. Certain geographic regions have specific stable isotope ratios that affect the chemistry of organisms foraging in those locations, this creates "isoscapes" that scientists can use to understand where the organism has been eating. A couple prerequisites must be met in order to use stable isotope analysis successfully: (1) the animal must have at least one light isotope of interest in specific tissues that can be sampled (this condition is almost always met since these light isotopes are building blocks of most animal tissues), and (2) the organism needs to migrate between isotopically different regions and these isotopes must be retained in the tissue in order for the differences to be measured.[11]
Stable isotope analysis has a lot of benefits and has been used in terrestrial and aquatic organisms. For example, stable isotope analysis has been confirmed to work in determining foraging locations of nesting loggerhead sea turtles.[12] Satellite telemetry was used to confirm that the location derived from the analysis were accurate to where these turtles actually traveled. This is important because it allows for greater sample sizes to be used in migration studies, since satellite telemetry is expensive and tissue, blood, and egg samples can be taken from the female turtles laying eggs.[12]
Importance
Electronic tags are giving scientists a complete, accurate picture of migration
Tracking migrations is an important tool to better understand and protect
In the wake of the
See also
References
- ^ Kingdon, Amorina (22 January 2018). "Are Scientific Tracking Tags Hurting Wild Animals?". Hakai Magazine. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
- ^ a b "Technology and Development at the USDA Forest Service, Satellite/GPS Telemetry for Monitoring Lesser Prairie Chickens". www.fs.fed.us. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
- ^ Original text (in public domain):"Internal radio transmitters have the advantage of remaining intact and functioning longer than traditional attachments. Implanted transmitters also are protected from extrinsic variables such as environmental elements and wear (Eagle et al. 1984)." (Lander et al. 2005) http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1191&context=usdeptcommercepub (accessed 29 November 2012)
- ^ a b c d "Animal Migration Research, Jeff Kelly Lab". www.animalmigration.org. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
- S2CID 34444695.
- ^ a b "PIT Tag Information Systems (PTAGIS) | Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission". www.psmfc.org. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
- ^ "Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) Tags in the Study of Animal Movement | Learn Science at Scitable". www.nature.com. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
- ^ SEATURTLE.ORG - Global Sea Turtle Network
- ^ a b Northern Bald Ibis Project
- ^ "Acoustic Telemetry Fisheries Research". www.htisonar.com. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
- ^ )
- ^ PMID 23028943.
- .
- PMID 27134752.
External links
- "Satellite Tracking." Space Today.
- Tomkiewicz Jr, Stanley. "Tracking animal Wild life." telonics.
- Zanoni, Mary. "Animal ID." Klamath Basin.
- "John James Audubon." Audubon. National Audubon Society, Inc.
- "Satellite Tracking Migratory Birds." Western Ecological Research Center.
- "Satellite Tracking Threatened Manatees." Space Today.
- "Tracking Manatee Movement." Save The Manatee Club.
- "Manatee Migration Updates." Journey North. Learner.
- Radio interview Robert and Kirk Miner remember their grandfather, Jack Miner, and talk about the Jack Miner Migratory Bird Sanctuary. Originally aired February 1, 2008.