Technology wish lists and the significance of temperature-sensing wildlife telemetry

Telemetry has revolutionized studies in wildlife biology, ecology, physiology, and conservation. With the increased demand for telemetry, new technology has made great strides to enable long studies in harsh and remote areas on a wide variety of study species. As the climate crisis continues to impact animals, temperature-sensing telemetry has become a helpful technique for understanding the effects of climate change and how to protect wildlife from them. However, temperature-sensing telemetry and telemetry in general still pose technological challenges and accessibility issues for the researchers who use it. Currently available telemetry technology is expensive, too large and heavy for many study species, and cannot measure all variables researchers want to study. These technological improvements have especially been neglected for temperature-sensing telemetry, which may be underutilized given the current climate crisis. To understand why innovation has stalled, and where it should be directed going forward, we gathered opinions from researchers who use telemetry and from manufacturers that create and supply telemetry equipment. Our goal was to broadly describe the current technological landscape, compare it to what we envision for the future, and make suggestions for how to reach that future.

Wildlife research and management methods in the 21st century: Where do unmanned aircraft fit in?

Since the turn of the century, emerging unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have found increasingly diverse applications in wildlife science as convenient, very high-resolution remote sensing devices. Achieved or conceptualized applications include optical surveying and observation of animals, autonomous wildlife telemetry tracking, and habitat research and monitoring. As the technology continues to progress and interest from the wildlife science community grows, there may yet be much untapped potential for UAS to contribute to the discipline. We present a review of the published primary literature on the application of UAS in wildlife science and related fields. This is followed by a systematic review of the broader wildlife science literature published since the turn of the century to assess where UAS are likely to make important contributions going forward based on the trends that have emerged thus far. UAS, in particular small lightweight models, are generally well suited for collecting data at an intermediate spatial scale between what is easily coverable on the ground and what is economically coverable with conventional aircraft. They are particularly useful for monitoring wildlife and habitats in places that are difficult to access or navigate from the ground, as well as approaching sensitive or aggressive species.

A Sub-Surface Model of Solar Power for Distributed Marine Sensor Systems

The capabilities of distributed sensor systems, such as wildlife telemetry tags, could be significantly enhanced through the application of energy harvesting. For animal telemetry systems, supplemental energy would allow for longer tag deployments, wherein more data could be collected, enhancing our temporal and spatial comprehension of the hosts activities and/or environments. There are various transduction methods that could be employed for energy harvesting in aquatic environments. Photovoltaic elements have not been widely deployed in the subsurface marine environments despite a significant potential. In addition to wildlife telemetry systems, photovoltaic energy harvesting systems could also serve as a means of energy supply for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), as well as submersible buoys for oceanographic data collection. Until now, the use of photovoltaic cells for underwater energy harvesting has generally been disregarded as a viable energy source in this arena, with only one company currently offering solar modules integrated with marine telemetry tags. In this article, we develop a model of power available from photovoltaic cells deployed in a sub-surface marine environment. We cover the methods and tools used to estimate solar energy at depth, including the effects of: latitude and longitude, reflected solar energy off of the oceans surface, solar irradiance lost due to the absorption and turbidity of the sea water, cloud cover, etc. We present the availability of this solar energy source in the context of the energy requirements of some of these sensor systems, such as marine bio-loggers. Additionally, we apply our model to simulate the energy harvested on specific marine species in which high fidelity depth information is known. We also apply our model to simulate solar cells at certain depths under the ocean to gain a general understanding of the solar energy available at these depths.

The success of GPS collar deployments on mammals in Australia

Global Positioning System (GPS) wildlife telemetry collars are being used increasingly to understand the movement patterns of wild mammals. However, there are few published studies on which to gauge their general utility and success. This paper highlights issues faced by some of the first researchers to use GPS technology for terrestrial mammal tracking in Australia. Our collated data cover 24 studies where GPS collars were used in 280 deployments on 13 species, including dingoes or other wild dogs (Canis lupus dingo and hybrids), cats (Felis catus), foxes (Vulpes vulpes), kangaroos (Macropus giganteus), koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), livestock guardian dogs (C. l. familiaris), pademelons (Thylogale billardierii), possums (Trichosurus cunninghami), quolls (Dasyurus geoffroii and D. maculatus), wallabies (Macropus rufogriseus and Petrogale lateralis), and wombats (Vombatus ursinus). Common problems encountered were associated with collar design, the GPS, VHF and timed-release components, and unforseen costs in retrieving and refurbishing collars. We discuss the implications of collar failures for research programs and animal welfare, and suggest how these could be avoided or improved. Our intention is to provide constructive advice so that researchers and manufacturers can make informed decisions about using this technology, and maximise the many benefits of GPS while reducing the risks.