Wildlife monitoring via satellites

Researchers estimate that there are approximately 1 million reindeer in Siberia but they can offer no guarantees to that number as monitoring the herds is practically an impossible task.

Until now, the reindeer population was tracked via aerial monitoring but the method is simply too expensive and inefficient for scientists to keep it up.

But Siberian Federal University scientists have started fitting animals with satellite transmission collars. Thanks to this device, researchers will now be able to keep a closer eye than ever on the migration routes, habitat and wintering sites of the animals.

The Russian collar manufacturer, Alexander Salman, explained the technology behind the device: ‘The device is fixed to an animal and turned on by removing the magnet attached to it. From that moment the device starts to identify its own coordinates with the aid of the navigation receiver and then it transmit the GPS coordinates.’

These collars might have another upside to them: they can help authorities devise new and improved strategies against illegal hunting.

Reindeer are not the only animals to benefit from technology. Penguins at an Australian Zoo have also been fitted with small GPS devices and accelerometers which monitor where and how they seek food and how they swim.

‘We’re deploying these little accelerometer loggers on the captive penguins here at Taronga Zoo to give us an idea of the way that penguins move in three dimensional space in the water when we can’t see them,’ said Macquarie University researcher Gemma Carroll.

Because penguins are highly sensitive to habitat change, the whole species is an important indicator of the health of the oceans.