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WILDLABS logoWildlabs.net : The conservation technology network

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

Wing-tags with trackers attached?

Ruth Cope

3 March 2023 1:47am

Hi all, We want to better understand the population movements of the bird species, Little Corellas, in South Australia. We are wanting to attach a tracking device that...

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Ruth Cope

19 March 2023 5:58am

Thanks Thomas! 

I haven't found any wing-tag avian trackers like I described. Although, similar models have been made for terrestrial animals in the form of ear tags. 

I am inquiring as to whether a lighter version can be made for birds. Although an obvious concern is the weight of the tracker since the wellbeing of the bird is our priority. 

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discussion

Monitoring airborne biomass

Liechti Felix

14 March 2023 10:30am

We are producing hard- and software for small scale research  radars to monitor airborne biomass automatically. We can distinguish birds, bats and insects through day and...

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Liechti Felix

20 March 2023 2:44pm

Our project in very short is, setting up a sensor network for monitoring airborne biomass, mainly insects, birds and bats in near realtime, and to develop a forecast model to be used for mitigation with respect various types of human-wildlife conflicts (e.g. wind power, pesticide application, aviation). Our expertise is mainly in radar monitoring, but we aim on add insect camera information to be merged with the quantitative biomass measeurments by radar.

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discussion

Monique - the space Elk(s)

Lars Holst Hansen

20 March 2023 2:25pm

I have enjoyed the recent podcast on Monique the first animal(s) to carry a satellite collar, the ICARUS project etc. Also, regarding Monique there is this interesting...

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discussion

Moveapps: EMAC23 Coding Challenge

Andrea Koelzsch

3 March 2023 7:58am

Motivated by having been named a Conservation Tech Award grantee in 2022, we are launching the EMAC23 coding challenge to Equip MoveApps for Conservation.Pick one of five use...

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Lars Holst Hansen

3 March 2023 3:12pm

Super initiative! I hope you get a lot of entries to this coding challenge!

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Link

The WILDLABS Variety Hour: February 2023 - YouTube

Stephanie O'Donnell

3 March 2023 11:24am

Last week's Variety Hour is now up on youtube. It was a great session - we covered Moveapps, an awesome community project building marine biologgers, chatgpt and google earth engine vs microsoft's planetary computer. Thanks everyone who came along!

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discussion

Tiny trackers for fish - other applications?

Ellie Warren

22 February 2023 9:48pm

Hi all,I've just seen this interesting tweet about tiny trackers for fish:And in light of our Tracking Progress virtual meetups and research, it's got me wondering about...

1 3
Thomas Gray

24 February 2023 3:40pm

These are really small acoustic tags. (Lotek Wireless, Sonotronics, and the JSATs design are examples of similar manufacturers/products.) These tags will only work in water because they require water in order to propagate their signal. Of course that means you need receivers in order to pick up the signal, so usually organizations will have a string or strings of strategically placed receivers to pick up the acoustic tags (mouths of rivers is a common location). I think the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) operates some of the largest sets of receivers. Others are managed by the institution themselves, various regional IOOS offices, and/or similar. 

They could work on really small sea turtles, but you are limited to tracking them based on the range of the receivers (which for smaller tags is even more limited, measured in meters or hundreds of meters). Lotek Wireless recently started producing their "Sunbird" line which has been used on some relatively small turtles. You can look at the work that Upwell is doing as an example of satellite-based tracking with very small turtles. 

Birds...out of the question : ( 

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article

Download Now: A Best Practice Guide to Satellite Technologies for Tracking Wildlife

WILDLABS Team and 1 more

17 February 2023 10:29am

The Zoological Society of London, with the support of WILDLABS and the UK Space Agency, are proud to publish this new guide to satellite technologies for tracking wildlife.

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Lars Holst Hansen

17 February 2023 11:34am

Very nice! Looking forward to checking it out!
Stephanie O'Donnell

20 February 2023 9:34am

We had this comment come in to our team from @Redfoxmeek so I'm passing along the helpful resource: Hi Folks- Thanks for the manual, can I also draw your attention to...
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article

Operation Pangolin launches to save world's most trafficked wild mammal

Alasdair Davies

16 February 2023 7:51pm

Researchers and conservationists are embarking on a bold initiative to save the world's most trafficked wild mammal — the pangolin

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Lilian Musembei

17 February 2023 1:50am

This is an amazing project. I'm eager to learn the conservation solutions from the projects that can be transferred to other species. We need this in Kenya, our biodiversity is...
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discussion

pseudoranges

Lars Holst Hansen

31 January 2023 9:10pm

After reading about pseudoranges and quick fixes in this paper:and doing a bit of digging around for "pseudoranges", I stumbled upon the following paper:and script:It could seem...

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lucas shen

2 February 2023 3:24am

Thank you very much for finding these materials. I also tried to find similar techniques using pseudorange positioning a few months ago, but unfortunately I did not find so many papers and such creative works at that time. Your materials seemed to open it up for me. most sincere thanks！

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event

AniMove Summer School 2023

Stephanie O'Donnell

10 February 2023 1:19pm

AniMove is a collective of international researchers with extensive experience in the topics of animal movement analysis, remote sensing and conservation. AniMove is a two-week intensive training course for studying...

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Link

New tutorial on Firetail 10 - annotation of acceleration data

Tobias Petri

8 February 2023 12:18pm

Hi! I created a new tutorial video on how to annotate high density acceleration data using Firetail 10 (www.firetail.de). In particular, I cover * how to automatically segment your data * how to edit and modify annotations * how to transfer models across individuals * how...

2
discussion

Telemetry and tracking Snakes

Huascar Bustillos Cayoja

30 January 2023 2:44pm

Telemetry and Tracking  SnakesHi everyone , am improving a project about spacial ecology on viper snakes of Lachesis genera. We dont know wich tecnology for tracking its more...

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Robin Poches

2 February 2023 1:47pm

Hi Huascar, how are you? there's limitations on snakes since their body form and behaviour, if you leave a VHF or GPS tag as an external fixation it will get tangled with roths and branches and it will fall, besides you have to suture and it can cause infections.

So far you only got implanted VHF transmitters, that's the most common, lonlasting and safe fixation method.

There's an alternative of using Tegaderm as a external fixation method but with ecdysis will eventually remove it.

any doubts please write me robinpoches@gmail.com

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discussion

Repository for 3D models of tracking devices

Yvan Satgé

14 September 2017 2:29pm

Hello everybody, This message is to start a repository for printable 3D models of tracking devices. It is never easy to get an idea of the size and...

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Yvan Satgé

3 October 2017 6:33pm

3D model of custome-made GeoTrak GT-65GS-GPS with slanted front face (adapted from http://www.geotrakinc.com/products/solarGPS/PTT-65g-solarGPS.html).

Known flaws: Size and shape of attachment loops are not correct: the actual material is too thin to allow for a strong 3D printing so I decided to make the loops thicker; the actual loop hole is also slightly wider. Base of antenna is shorter than actual one. Actual device has smoother angles and slightly convex top (where the solar panels are).

The 3D print will need to be sanded to smoothen the edges and to get the soft angles of the original design. I also designed the tag with a hole where the back solar panels should be: this is to add weight (metals nuts and bolts) to reach a final mass of 65g.

Attached files: 

gt-65gs-gps_slanted_3d.skp_.pdf: SketchUp 2016 file. Change file name back to .skp

gt-65gs-gps_slanted_for_3d_print.stl_.pdf: Printing file. Change file name back to .stl

Yvan

Rob Appleby

20 September 2018 6:01pm

Hi Yvan,

Steph directed me to this awesome resource. These units look so well made! Are you potting in the solar panels? Also, if you are interested, we've been working on a timed drop-off for avian tracking devices similar to this, which I am happy to share details about. 

Anyway, in the spirit of your efforts, we've uploaded some collar housing designs and associated .stl files to our Website here: https://www.wildspy.com.au/resources.php

Shall add more as we design more. 

Great initiative Yvan!

Cheers,

Rob

 

Yvan Satgé

19 January 2023 10:38pm

I Rob, I just saw your message today (19 Jan 2023)! It's a bit late to reply but I wanted to make sure the tag manufacturer got the credit on the quality of their work. I'm not the manufacturer (just a user): these are made by Keith LeSage at Geotrak Inc, North Carolina, USA. We've beein working with them for about 10 years now and all their tags are as good looking as these. 

https://geotrakinc.com/
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Link

Firetail Fellowships

Tobias Petri

19 January 2023 12:11pm

I'm a software engineer/data scientist at Schäuffelhut Berger. We're developing Firetail a software for GPS and acceleration visualization and behavioral annotation. We have just launched our Firetail Fellowship Program which may be a great way to get access to a full...

4
discussion

Interview for Technologies in Conservation

Nikolas

24 November 2022 10:07am

Dear Wildlabs community, my name is Nikolas and I am a Master's Student from Lisbon. Like many of you, I grew up with a great passion for the wildlife that we are surrounded...

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Carly Batist

16 January 2023 2:42pm

I'd be happy to chat with you if you wanted! My expertise is within passive acoustic monitoring particularly. The Conservation Tech Directory might be useful for you in identifying relevant actors within the space.

Pen-Yuan Hsing

17 January 2023 5:12pm

My original background is in ecology and conservation, and am now in the elected leadership of the Gathering for Open Science Hardware which convenes researchers developing open source tech for science. I am not working on a specific piece of technology right now, but am happy to contribute some higher-level views for your interview if that helps.

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discussion

Wildlife Telemetry Podcasts

Lars Holst Hansen

9 January 2023 11:49am

While browsing through the producers of wildlife telemetry, I was wondering if there were any podcasts out there on wildlife telemetry and the companies.Indeed there is!I have...

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discussion

NomaTrack and the LoRa-DTN protocol

Lars Holst Hansen

27 February 2021 11:58pm

I just stumbled upon this report on using LoRa in Reindeer husbandry in Scandinavia wich could be useful for wildlife uses too. "The NomaTrack design combines the...

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Jared Marley

26 March 2021 8:26pm

LoRA is registered in most places. With Starlink offering more and more service it would be possible in the future to transmit remote images through satellite once it is available in Madagascar. Power consumption of Starlink is big though.

Lars Holst Hansen

4 January 2023 2:07pm

Hi Carly!

Since LoRa and LoRaWAN are meant for low bandwidth data it is not really feasible to use for transmitting remote audio and image data. It could be very valuable to have metadata like battery levels and trap "levelness" sent back to get an idea of the power and physical state of the traps. I am dreaming of something like this for our remote camera traps used for monitoring arctic fox dens in Greenland. They are not rarely turned over by muskox and polar bear and we are consequently loosing important data.

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