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Group

Animal Movement / Feed

Animal movement technologies are revolutionizing our understanding of wildlife, revealing insights like migration patterns, key corridors, and the impacts of mounting pressures on natural systems. As we continue to develop these tools and work toward translating movement data into actionable insights, coordination between efforts is essential. This group is a place for the animal movement community to connect and discuss our efforts to advance the field.

Group curators

discussion

Detecting animals' heading and body orientation

Peter Apps

2 April 2025 10:53am

Good day,I have a specific remote surveillance application that is proving to be much more of a challenge than I thought.I need to detect where (GPS fix) African wild dogs (25 kg...

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Peter Apps

23 April 2025 8:08pm

Thank you Phil,

That sounds as if it might work (but probably with a turn trigger of around 45 degrees), and the baboon collar is well within the weight limit. Where can I find more details about the collar?

Peter

Philip Richardson

25 April 2025 10:50am

Hi Peter,  Just tell me exactly what you are looking for.  I have commissioned these collars from the engineer who originally made my Virtual Fence back in 2016 (still working).   The aim is to have a long life while also taking regular readings (5 - 10min)  so that animals cannot invade croplands or villages without being detected before they can be do any damage.   We have tried to include all possible features that will be useful, while still maintaining low weight and simplicity.  Hence no solar and external antennae outside the housing.  

Cheers, Phil

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discussion

Expert feedback wanted: Energy Harvesting

David Blažević

13 March 2025 12:40pm

Hi,We’re a research project working on energy-harvesting technology that makes animal wearables self-powered by using locomotion, heat and/or sunlight, and reduces reliance on...

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David Blažević

11 April 2025 10:57am

Hi, we've gotten more than 20 replies until now so thank you if you took the time to answer.

And we would really appreciate if you could spare a few minutes to answer if you haven't by now!

 

Thank you,

David, Kinect team

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discussion

non-invasive technique to apply GPS collars without catching?

Antoine Ede

14 June 2021 12:01pm

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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Talia Speaker

26 November 2024 11:34pm

In case anyone missed it, the latest from the burr on fur work! 

Read "Telemetry without collars: performance of fur- and ear-mounted satellite tags for evaluating the movement and behaviour of polar bears | Animal Biotelemetry | Full Text" on BioMed Central

Telemetry without collars: performance of fur- and ear-mounted satellite tags for evaluating the movement and behaviour of polar bears | Animal Biotelemetry | Full Text

The study of animal movement provides insights into underlying ecological processes and informs analyses of behaviour and resource use, which have implications for species management and conservation. The tools used to study animal movement have evolved over the past decades, allowing for data collection from a variety of species, including those living in remote environments. Satellite-linked radio and GPS collars have been used to study polar bear (Ursus maritimus) ecology and movements throughout the circumpolar Arctic for over 50 years. However, due to morphology and growth constraints, only adult female polar bears can be reliably collared. Collars have proven to be safe, but there has been opposition to their use, resulting in a deficiency in data across much of the species’ range. To bolster knowledge of movement characteristics and behaviours for polar bears other than adult females, while also providing an alternative to collars, we tested the use of fur- and ear-mounted telemetry tags that can be affixed to polar bears of any sex and age. We tested three fur tag designs (SeaTrkr, tribrush and pentagon tags), which we affixed to 15 adult and 1 subadult male polar bears along the coast of Hudson Bay during August–September 2021–2022. Fur tags were compared with ear tags deployed on 42 subadult and adult male polar bears captured on the coast or the sea ice between 2016 and 2022. We used data from the tags to quantify the amount of time subadult and adult males spent resting versus traveling while on land. Our results show the three fur tag designs remained functional for shorter mean durations (SeaTrkr = 58 days; tribrush = 47 days; pentagon = 22 days) than ear tags (121 days), but positional error estimates were comparable among the Argos-equipped tags. The GPS/Iridium-equipped SeaTrkr fur tags provided higher resolution and more frequent location data. Combined, the tags provided sufficient data to model different behavioural states. Furthermore, as hypothesized, subadult and adult male polar bears spent the majority of their time resting while on land, increasing time spent traveling as temperatures cooled. Fur tags show promise as a short-term means of collecting movement data from free-ranging polar bears.

BioMed Central
Antoine Ede

28 March 2025 10:15am

Reopenning this discussion again in case there is some news!

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discussion

Mole-Rat Mystery. Can anyone help?

Sean Hill

19 March 2025 3:25pm

Good afternoon everyone! I am currently doing a personal study on Cape Dune Mole-Rat (Bathyergus suillus) activity in my free time along an estuary. I do not know...

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Jocelyn Stalker

20 March 2025 4:17pm

Hi Sean! I love that you are naturally curious and are pursuing really cool projects in your free time. I know absolutely nothing about cape dune mole rats (in fact, never heard of them prior to this post, but I will confess I was interested in the concept of a mole-rat mystery), but I did have some thoughts about where you might find more information-

It seems like the types of questions you are asking are pretty specific and niche. My first thought on how to find someone with expertise in these specific rodents was to go to their iNat page- there you can see the top observer and top identifier. Both individuals are active researchers, so I think reaching out to them on iNat or finding their e-mails from their respective organizations' sites might be a good way to get in touch.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1986.tb03570.x

I also did a quick search in Google Scholar in which I typed in only the scientific name and hit go. The two publications linked above caught my eye as potentially helpful in your search- particularly the first one. They excavated burrows and noted things like home range size, that males have more burrows than females, etc. I didn't go much beyond the abstracts but these seem like they might get you on the right tracks!

Happy ratting!

Sean Hill

25 March 2025 8:36am

Good morning Vance

Thank you very much! I am looking into some papers that I was kindly directed to by Jocelyn Stalker ( her comment below) and am looking for ways to establish population dynamics just by looking at the mounds. Once I have figured this part out I should be able to correlate the information to the drone data. The Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) for this project is very small, 1.3cm per pixel. This has proven to be very useful because I am able to use the very fine 3D models to run change detections that pick up new heaps and vegetation reductions (which may be due to feeding) on a weekly basis. It helps not only visualise but also quantify where the most activity has occurred. I will keep you posted!    

Sean Hill

25 March 2025 8:47am

Good morning Jocelyn

Thank you very much for your comment, this is proving to be very useful advice and thank you so much for setting me on the right path!! This is very exciting!!

They are the most extra ordinary little creatures and as I don't know much about them either, I thought I'd try learn as much as I can (not just through literature, but through my own observations as well). I walk past these mounds daily and am always intrigued when I see more mounds and really enjoy watching them actively push the dune sand up to the surface (you don't see the wee fellas but you can watch the sand move as they burrow away). One afternoon while flying my drone (I was quantifying the changes in sediment deposition and erosion volumes in the estuary after a flood that was soon followed by a super high tide), I had a heap between my legs and all of a sardine it starts moving! So that sparked my curiosity even further. 

I will keep you posted on my findings and thank you again for the papers and the direction! It is greatly appreciated!!

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discussion

Drone for Studying Migratory Birds - Research Input 

Nikita

9 October 2024 4:55pm

My name is Nikita Shakhraichuk, doing research under Intelligent Robotics and Emergent Automation Lab at Georgia Tech. My lab specializes in drone design and aircraft autonomy....

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Melisa Simic

18 February 2025 10:42pm

Hi! I would be interested to learn more about your project. Would you send me your contact email? Mine is melisa.simic@nuveen.com - We are infrastructure investors globally working with both clean energy and diversified infra assets. 

 

Thanks, Melisa

 

Brandon Hays

21 March 2025 3:25pm

Hi Nikita,

 If you haven't already, I'd recommend reaching out to the folks at the Cornell Ornithology lab. They're really glued into all things bird. In particular, I remember seeing a presentation years ago about their project birdcasting, which was measuring bird migration via radar. One of their next steps was to connect small scale behavior to large scale movement data, and it sounds like your drone project could help fill that gap. 

Cheers,

Brandon

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discussion

Subject: “Baa-bridge” – AI Sheep Stress Reduction, Seeking Genius Input!

Lloyd Fulham

20 February 2025 9:55pm

Subject: “Baa-bridge” – AI Sheep Stress Reduction, Seeking Genius Input! Hey Wildlabs community,I’m Lloyd Fulham, a French Canadian visionary in Quebec City...

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Julian Richardson

21 March 2025 12:18pm

I'm sure others here can comment better than I on models for classifying animal sounds, but from an ML pint of view, a key concern is getting enough data. 10 recordings does not sound like a lot (although how long are they?) and 1000 epochs does sound like a lot. It is very possible that your model is just learning to memorize the inputs, and that it will generalise poorly.

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discussion

IgotU

Nigel Butcher

29 February 2024 2:12pm

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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Natalie Olifiers

15 March 2025 4:22pm

Hi Nigel 

I am interested! I am using it on free-ranging dogs and need units ASAP. It would be nice to have 120B or the version you're working on. A friend is in the US now and he could bring them to me in Brazil.

Thank you!

 

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discussion

GPS tacking tag for turtle doves - any recommendations?

Chris Ralli

11 August 2021 11:00pm

I'm looking for recommendations for a GPS tracking device that would work on turtle doves migration from UK to Sub Saharan Africa and back.  Thanks Chris

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Carly Batist

13 October 2021 6:13pm

Hi all! Just wanted to add in that @gracieermi and I maintain a conservation tech directory that includes all the tracking/telemetry companies we've come across so far - conservationtech.directory. 

Currently listed doing a search of the directory - 

Cellular Tracking Technologies - https://celltracktech.com/ 

Advanced Telemetry Systems (ATS) - ​​https://atstrack.com/index.html

Ecotone Telemetry - http://www.ecotone-telemetry.com/index.php/en/oferta/obroze-telemetryczne

GPS Collars - https://www.gps-collars.com/ 

Lotek - https://www.lotek.com/

Microwave Telemetry - https://www.microwavetelemetry.com/

Milsar - https://milsar.com/

Technosmart Europe - https://www.technosmart.eu/

Telemetry Solutions - https://www.telemetrysolutions.com/

Telenax - https://telenax.com/

Telonics - https://www.telonics.com/index.php

Tigrinus - https://www.tigrinus.com.br/

Titley Scientific - https://www.titley-scientific.com/us/products/wildlife-tracking

Wildlife Computers - https://wildlifecomputers.com/

Xerius Tracking - http://www.xeriustracking.fr/

North Star - http://www.northstarst.com/

Migrate Tech - http://www.migratetech.co.uk/ 

e-obs GmbH - https://e-obs.de/

Africa Wildlife Tracking - https://awt.co.za/ 

Holohil - https://www.holohil.com/

Wildlife Materials - https://wildlifematerials.com/

Vectronic Aerospace/Vectronics - https://www.vectronic-aerospace.com/

Kiwi Track - https://kiwitrack.weebly.com/

Lars Holst Hansen

6 January 2023 8:32pm

The solution with an ICARUS antenna on the ISS is on hold. It is planned that the GRACE-I will be the new satellite system to support the ICARUS: 

GRACE-I is planned to be launched in 2027.

This mentions possible intermittent solutions:

I am a bit puzzled there is no mentioning of GRACE-I on ICARUS' own website:

Saud

14 March 2025 3:07am

Hello 


I’m planning to buy new device for turtle dove to study migration patterns in middle east 


So i need your help for the best device for this research 

Thanks 

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discussion

New Argos Constellation

Thomas Gray

24 June 2024 4:12pm

A few days ago we launched the first 5 of 25 new satellites into the Argos constellation. You can watch the rocket launch via the YouTube link below. Happy to note that the...

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Thomas Gray

11 March 2025 9:58pm

Hello Yvan, I work for Cellular Tracking Technologies now and out of the loop a little bit about CLS' activities. With that said, my suspicion is Summer(ish) 2025. (Maybe someone on the User Services team has better insight.)

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discussion

DIY using SDR connected to a smartphone as a radio telemetry receiver

Chittakon Amonsin

2 October 2024 5:53am

 Hello everyone, I would like to ask if anyone has ever used a radio telemetry tag for tracking wildlife with an SDR receiver connected to a smartphone. Does it work well? I...

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Robin Rowland

3 March 2025 2:03am

I'm also interested! I've been prepping to use andorids connected to rtl-sdr's and antennas to monitor animals in stationary roosts, but a Raspberry pi would be better as they can save battery life by only turning on ocassionally, and potentially recording the pulse rate of the VHR signal. 

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discussion

GPS collars for domestic dogs

Stephanie M.

20 January 2025 3:26am

Hi Everyone - I'm quantifying home ranges and contact rates between wildlife, pastoralists, and domestic animals (livestock guardian dogs and livestock) living on shared...

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Constance Woodman

20 February 2025 8:46pm

What are your parameters? Do you need yes no movement, which could be collected with an accelerometer and no lat-long data?

Movement on an XY grid once an hour within a tightly bounded area?

High resolution once per second data? Large geographic area?

Different technologies deliver ddifferent datasets. Sometimes, significantly!

Fadhilla Golda

10 March 2025 11:37am

Hi Stephanie, at https://Savannahtracking.com we develop and manufacture a variety of collars with sizes ranging from about 95 grams for Raptors, 200grams - 1200g for mammals, and collars for large mammals such as Elephants. We currently have collars deployed on Dingoes which are about the same size as domestic dogs, and I believe that a similar solution will be perfect for your needs.
Our GPS collars can be programmed to collect high resolution data (15-minute gps positions) with hourly uploads via iridium satellite to our server where you can view and download the data from our dedicated windows or MAC SDM platforms. We also have a view only android/ios app. All our collars have two-way satellite communication, Internet based downloading via the free accompanying Savannah Tracking data manager software, automated Google Earth links for visualization, fully user definable geo fencing allowing for point, line and polygon fences and automated app and mail alarms in case of zone violation.

Kindly reach out to us and we can discuss a bespoke solution for your tracking needs at info@savannahtracking.com

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event

WILDLABS Conservation Tech Meetup, DC

Alex Rood

3 March 2025 8:55pm

Come by a happy hour meetup hosted by WILDLABS in Washington, DC! This is a fantastic opportunity to connect with fellow conservation tech enthusiasts, share ideas, and enjoy a relaxed evening together.

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Soumya Bhattacharyya

7 March 2025 7:54pm

I am based out of Atlanta, GA and will come from out of town to DC to attend this. Since I will be in the area I will get some other things done like visiting DC zoo after a long...
Alex Rood

7 March 2025 8:40pm

Keep us in the loop if this happens! And let us know if you have any questions or ways WILDLABS may be able to help.There are quite a few wildlabbers in the area (@dmorris comes...
Soumya Bhattacharyya

23 March 2025 12:58am

I wanted to thank Wildlabs for arranging this unique event. I was overwhelmed by the turnout! It was incredible to see so many experts! However, it was very exciting to give faces...
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discussion

GPS Tracker For Wildlife

Akio

27 February 2025 12:13pm

Hello everyone! I'm Akio, and I'm new to this group.I'd love to start a discussion about GPS trackers for wildlife. As the developer of Loko—an open-source, offline GPS tracker—I’...

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Akio

2 March 2025 11:34am

Thank you for this valuable information!

Some of the features you mentioned can be quickly added to Loko, while others require more consideration. Loko’s communication is one-way—meaning the transmitter doesn’t know whether the receiver has received the data. This design choice is made to conserve battery life. However, all data is logged internally and can be accessed via USB.

I will add GeoTIFF loading to the Loko App. Currently, Loko is not suitable for wildlife tracking because it is not waterproof, but I am working on improving its mechanical design.

Loko already supports multiple connections, allowing many transmitters to connect to a single receiver or/and multiple receivers.

Regarding encryption: What do you mean by "Encryption should not be optional"?
Are you suggesting that communication should always be encrypted by default? on loko I made it user-configurable because encrypted data packets are 32 bytes, whereas unencrypted ones are 18 bytes. A smaller data packet improves reception sensitivity and extends the transmission range.

In your opinion, what would be a reasonable price for such a device? This is very important when adding new hardware features.

Cheers, 

Akio)

Akio

2 March 2025 11:42am

Hi Herhanu , appreciate for your valuable feedbacks.

  1. can you explain what type of release mechanisim do you mean ,   picture will be much helpfull .  do you mean with a remote release mechanisim activates and release the tracker from crocodile collar?
  2. how far data need to be sent ?    with a mesh network of Loko receivers wide range of area can be covered i guess.
  3. long distance transmission is very challanging  when transmitter is very close the ground , on crocodiles especially. 

for what purpose do would you use accelerometer data? is there any specific use case?

Cheers, )

Herdhanu Jayanto

2 March 2025 11:55pm

Sure, Akio! Happy to answer!
1. Yes, something like that. The few existing i guess applied already for GPS collar (literally collar) that usually for big cats and some other big mammals. There is also GPS tag for Cetaceans that can pop up, but its only remained with the animals several days CMIIW (eg see links below)
link 1

link 2

link 3

2. I guess it depends on your research questions or project objectives. But for crocodile they can have vast home range from 100 ha to 10,000 ha (depends on species). For my species, it at least uses 500 ha of area, and the farthest between points can be 15km apart.

3. accelerometer, especially in crocodile can give insight about their movement ability. As they can random as they can be - or being a statue for hours (like when you look at crocs in the zoo). Of course this would depends on your objectives.

Hope this helps!

Cheers~ 

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discussion

Building flexible antennas for telemetry radio

Chittakon Amonsin

10 October 2024 5:59am

Hello I have been working on creating low-cost telemetry radios for tracking wildlife. I am confident that many people could develop tracking tags for VHF frequencies between 148-...

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Rob Appleby

21 October 2024 3:01pm

This is very cool Chittakon! I have about approximately 1000 measuring tapes lying around in my garage that would be perfect for this (and if I happen to have to measure something in the field I can!)! An no more fighting my way through the bush with solid Yagis!!

Cheers,

Rob

Annika Binet

2 March 2025 9:07am

This is great, I am looking at making a 173mhz flexible aerial and was wondering whether you have the spec needed for this at all?

Thanks!

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discussion

The 100KB Challenge!

Dan

7 February 2025 11:47am

If you could send/receive 100KB of data from anywhere on the planet via satellite; what would you send?I work for a company called Ground Control, we design, build and manufacture...

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Dan

20 February 2025 9:13am

Nice one - what kind of thing would you use this for? 

~500mA peak current, it has a similar power profile as the current RockBLOCK product, in that it needs lots of juice for a for a small period of time (to undertake the transmission) we include onboard circuitry to help smooth this over. I'll be able to share more details on this once the product is officially launched!

 

Dan

20 February 2025 9:13am

~500mA peak current, it has a similar power profile as the current RockBLOCK product, in that it needs lots of juice for a for a small period of time (to undertake the transmission) we include onboard circuitry to help smooth this over. I'll be able to share more details on this once the product is officially launched!

 

Nuno Cesar de Sa

20 February 2025 9:31am

Hi Dan, 

Not right now but I can envision many uses. A key problem in RS is data streams for validation and training of ML models, its really not yet a solved problem. Any kind of system that is about deploying and "forgetting" as it collects data and streams it is a good opportunity. 

 

If you want we can have a talk so you tell me about what you developed and I'll see if it fits future projects.

 

All the best

 

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discussion

External GPS trackers for large snakes 

Ru Somaweera

21 January 2025 3:55am

Does anyone have experience with external GPS trackers for large snakes? I've scanned through the literature but all most all studies are on smaller species and for a short period...

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Rob Appleby

24 January 2025 3:18pm

Hi @RuSomaweera I haven't tracked snakes and would be interested to hear about any appropriate approaches too! I found this paper you might've already seen by Christensen et al. (2024) discussing attachment methods for snakes more generally (from my quick scan, I don't think it covers species such as anacondas in great detail though). Only one study that used an external GPS system met the reviwers inclusion criteria (by Gerke et al. 2021), which appeared to involved duct tape and super glue and this device from Ecotone. There's a picture on page 547 of the article. It looks as if the tracking times averaged 19 days and ranged from 10-28 days. Perhaps a more flexible and water-ready variant of this might be something like a neoprene 'sleeve' that can be fitted around the body of the snake with the GPS device attached to the sleeve? And perhaps some sort of medical-grade silicone adhesive would be better able to stick to the snakes skin? I am not sure if it would be appropriate or not, but I found this article discussing a type of medical silicone called 'BioAdheSil'. Perhaps you could discuss it with the authors? Anyway, looking forward to other responses and information you gather!

Cheers,

Rob

Thomas Gray

13 February 2025 10:40pm

Not with GPS; however, we could set up a node grid where you can localize their movement within the grid space. I don't know how much a snake moves though, so that would have to be taken into account of course. 

 

Read "CTT Node™ Version 3.0 with dual frequencies (note: power source sold s – Cellular Tracking Technologies" on Cellular Tracking Technologies

CTT Node™ Version 3.0 with dual frequencies (note: power source sold s – Cellular Tracking Technologies

  The new CTT Node 3.0 is the next evolution in radio telemetry, while providing consistency for those already using nodes in their research.  You spoke, and we listened.  While previous nodes worked incredibly well in areas where full sun was plentiful, having the solar panel directly atop the case has its limitations

Cellular Tracking Technologies
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discussion

AI for Bird and Bat Recognition

Lorenzo Girotti

7 February 2025 11:57am

Hi everyone,I'm working on a project involving the automatic recognition of bats and birds from their audio recordings in Italy, with a possibile evolution also in other european...

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Carly Batist

7 February 2025 5:06pm

Hi Lorenzo,

I highly recommend the OpenSoundscapes package (developed by the Kitzes Lab at U Pittsburgh) - there are workflows to build your own CNNs there, the documentation is really thorough, and the team are very responsive to inquiries. They also have a bioacoustics 'model zoo' that lists relevant models. The Perch model from Google would be good to look into as well.

Some recent papers I've seen that might also be worth checking out -

Hope that helps a bit!

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