topic: Tracking

topic: Tracking

Social media activity version | Lean version

Reconnecting the skies: Linking flyways for migratory seabirds across continents
- Seabirds are the most threatened group of birds, with more than 30% at risk of extinction. Migratory seabirds are especially vulnerable.
- Researchers have described six marine flyways used by migratory pelagic seabirds, aerial corridors that cross the national waters of 56 countries; the high seas are used by at least 151 species.
- In March, the U.N. Convention on Migratory Species adopted a resolution on marine flyways, creating a structure for international cooperation on protections.
- Researchers are using seabird tracking data to identify key sites along marine flyways that need protection or mitigation measures against threats.

From radar blobs to bird species, AI helps transform migration tracking
- A new tool is helping scientists identify specific bird species from among flocks of migrating birds.
- BirdFlow combines citizen science observations with weather radar data to help scientists detect specific species and predict their migration routes.
- Conventional tracking of migrating birds uses weather radar, but this technology can’t distinguish between different species in a flock.
- The BirdFlow developers say the tool can be helpful for tracking threatened species and improving conservation measures along the birds’ migratory routes.

Telling one guiña from another: It’s all about the angle
- Guiña are small cats found in Chile and Argentina. Though in 2025 the IUCN downlisted the species to least concern, not enough is known about populations under threat from habitat loss, persecution and forest fires.
- To help fill those gaps, researchers switched the angle of the camera traps used for surverying the species to film guiña individuals from above rather than at ground level. That enabled them to identify individual cats during camera trapping between February 2019 and November 2020 in a protected area in Reñihué Valley, Chile.
- If used more widely in camera trap surveys, this technique could help accurately estimate guiña populations in the wild.
- The researchers also say this technique could be applied to other small cat species.

To improve its floundering fisheries, Kenya boosts data collection on artisanal fleet
- In Kenya, fishers are experiencing increased competition for dwindling catches. A lack of data is stymying their decision-making about where and when to fish as well as the governments’ decision-making about how to manage fishing in the country, experts say.
- A new project aims to improve the collection of fisheries data, harmonize them and make them accessible to fishers and the government alike.
- It involves beefed-up data collection methods, the installation of trackers on fishing vessels and a centralized database and digital platform.
- The initiative is modeled around a program in Timor-Leste that began in 2016 and now serves as the country’s national fisheries monitoring system.

Electric fences help farmers and elephants coexist in Zambian borderlands
- In 2015, Malawi and Zambia signed a treaty to create a transfrontier conservation area that allows wildlife to cross from Malawi’s Kasungu National Park, to Zambia’s Lukusuzi and Luambe national parks.
- Much of Kasungu’s eastern boundary is fenced, but there’s no fence along its western boundary, located along Zambia’s eastern border.
- This means the elephants can move out of the park into an area of human settlements to reach Lukusuzi. But they also raid farmers’ fields.
- Conservation group IFAW is setting up cluster farms, surrounded by electric wires to prevent the elephants from destroying crops, giving them a chance to cross farmlands to reach secure rangelands in Zambia.

Elephants return to Mount Elgon side of Uganda after four decades
- Monitoring of elephants on Mount Elgon, on the Uganda-Kenya border, shows a herd of elephants have crossed over to the Ugandan side, into areas they had largely abandoned since the 1970s.
- The Uganda Wildlife Authority says their return is a positive sign that efforts to restore degraded forest in Mount Elgon National Park is succeeding.
- Residents of Bukwo district, which overlaps with the national park, say elephants destroyed crops in 2025 but UWA rangers have so far prevented this in 2026.

Radio and satellite alerts help Zambian farmers live with dangerous wildlife
- In Zambia’s Eastern Province, a community radio station beams out programs and messages on coping with human-wildlife conflict.
- Tuning in are villagers living in a transfrontier conservation area straddling this part of Zambia, and neighboring Malawi.
- When Mongabay visited, residents were mostly worried about attacks by hyenas, which officials say have recently claimed the lives of four children.
- But cutting-edge satellite technology also provides farmers with an early warning on the approach of potentially destructive elephant herds.

As elephants return in eastern Zambia, communities adapt to coexistence
- Four years ago, more than 200 elephants were relocated to Malawi’s Kasungu National Park, which shares an open border with three farming districts in eastern Zambia.
- The elephants regularly move into farms, sometimes raiding granaries and destroying crops and posing a risk to people.
- Amid deep skepticism, conservationists and wildlife officials are working with locals to change attitudes, turning conflict into coexistence.

How Southern African farmers & elephants can both adapt to coexist
- In Southern Africa, people live alongside elephants, but not always peacefully.
- The growing reports of human-elephant conflict have triggered calls for elephant culls in some countries, like Zimbabwe.
- But conservation groups are working hard to promote coexistence, using technology that can warn farmers about approaching elephants or link farmers to more lucrative markets to offset the cost of living with one of Africa’s most charismatic mammals.
- In all of this, adaptation is the key: Farmers are adapting the way they farm, while elephants are learning to move at night and stick to specific routes through populated areas to avoid conflict.

‘Internet of Animals,’ a unified wildlife tracker, set to resume after hiatus
- A global project that tracks wildlife via satellites has resumed operations after a hiatus of three years.
- Project ICARUS, which aims to create the “internet of animals,” capitalizes on advances in wireless tracking technology to monitor individual animals.
- The trackers record data that will help scientists track the movements, migrations and behaviors of animals in different parts of the world.
- The system also enables scientists and conservationists to understand how animals are interacting with one another and with their respective ecosystems.

Artisanal fishers in Liberia question benefits of new tracking devices from government
- The Liberian government earlier this year distributed 400 automatic identification system (AIS) transponders to small-scale fishers in the counties of Grand Cape Mount, Grand Bassa, Margibi and Montserrado.
- The devices transmit a vessel’s position and speed via radio signals, and Liberian authorities say they hope it will help in speeding up responses to vessels that are in distress.
- However, many small-scale fishers appear reluctant to adopt the new device, with some saying they would prefer GPS-equipped devices that let them track their own location.
- The Liberia Artisanal Fishermen Association (LAFA), an advocacy group, blames the low adoption rate on the inadequate involvement of fishers during the design and rollout of the project.

Corridors, not culls, offer solution to Southern Africa’s growing elephant population
- Elephant populations in Southern Africa are stable or growing, but the space available for them is not.
- Often, elephant populations are constrained, increasing their impact on the environment or surrounding communities, and triggering calls for controversial solutions, like culls or contraception.
- But studies in a region that hosts 50% of Africa’s remaining savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) show how the animals make use of wildlife corridors to move between protected areas and neighboring countries.
- Encouraging elephants to migrate can help relieve overpopulation in some areas, but any corridor invariably intersects with human communities, making it both vital ecological infrastructure and a social challenge.

Northern Cameroon’s lions are reproducing, but concerns remain
- GPS tracking of 10 collared lions in Bouba Ndjida National Park has confirmed multiple lionesses with cubs, indicating successful reproduction of Cameroon’s highly threatened northern lion subspecies.
- Conservationists warn many cubs may not reach adulthood because dispersing young lions are exposed to snares, retaliatory killings, and other human pressures along the park’s edges.
- With only about 60-80 lions in Bouba Ndjida and fewer than 1,000 northern lions left in Central Africa, the park is seen as crucial to the subspecies’ survival and recovery.
- Uncontrolled livestock grazing, poaching, insecurity, and weak connectivity with neighboring parks hamper conservation; experts call for larger safe areas, community involvement, and coordinated management to ensure long-term survival.

To track a unicorn: Laos team goes all out to find the last saolas
- An intensive search is underway in Laos to find perhaps the most threatened large mammal on the planet: the saola ox.
- Sniffer dogs, local and international wildlife tracking experts, and a state-of-the-art DNA kit have all been deployed to try to home in on any unknown individuals of the species so elusive conservationists once dubbed it the “Asian unicorn.”
- Last documented in 2013, when a camera trap photographed an adult in central Vietnam, previous attempts to study the saola have been stymied by a lack of sightings.
- Conservationists are aware of the ever-ticking clock, however, and warn that extinction is “inevitable” without a dedicated and intensive push to study remaining individuals and safely bring them into captivity to start a conservation breeding program to revive the species.

Long-lost white shark tag traces remarkable journey from South Africa to SE Asia
- The discovery of a satellite tag from a subadult female white shark in Indonesia marks the first recorded connectivity of white shark movement between South Africa and Southeast Asia.
- The white sharks found in South Africa and Australia belong to different genetic pools, which makes the two populations distinct from one another, even though they share the same migratory route.
- The biggest threats facing white sharks in South Africa and Indonesia are unsustainable fishing, where the sharks become both the bycatch and main catch.
- While there are attempts to support local fishers to pioneer shark conservation instead of hunting them, such efforts are thwarted by lack of funding.

Radio tags help reveal the secret lives of tiger salamanders
- Scientists are using radio telemetry to map out the home range and habitats of tiger salamanders in the Hamptons in New York.
- Tiger salamanders spend most of their time in burrows underground; they emerge during breeding season and lay eggs in seasonal pools.
- Studying their movements and how far they move from the pools is challenging because of their underground lifestyle.
- With the help of radio transmitters, scientists have found that the salamanders move greater distances than previously thought; they were also found to burrow under fields.

Vital Mekong fish corridors tracked for first time, but funding cuts threaten future research
- By implanting fish with small electronic transmitters, researchers were able to track key migration corridors in the Mekong River.
- The findings underscore the threat that dozens of planned dams along the Mekong will cut off these vital migratory paths.
- The study, which the lead author describes as a “pilot effort,” was funded by USAID; the funding gap caused by the U.S. foreign aid freeze leaves the future of such research in question.

Surge in rat numbers linked to climate warming, urbanization: Study
What’s new: Cities experiencing warmer temperatures, fewer green spaces and denser human populations are seeing a rise in rat numbers, a recent study shows. What the study says: Jonathan Richardson, a biology professor at the University of Richmond, U.S., and his colleagues wanted to check if anecdotal media claims about increasing urban rat (Rattus spp.) […]
Satellite ‘backpacks’ help keep track of parrot migration in Mexico
- Scientists and conservationists have deployed lightweight satellite backpacks, containing transmitters, to study and understand the migration patterns of thick-billed parrots.
- Teams from San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in the U.S. and conservation NGO Organización Vida Silvestre in Mexico have gathered more than 70,000 data points over four years.
- The data helped them identify corridors that are critical for the birds’ movements; they also served to justify the designation of protected areas that are important for the birds.
- Thick-billed parrots, known for their raucous calls, are an endangered species endemic to Mexico; illegal logging in recent years has led to the degradation of their habitats.

Smart tags reveal migratory bats are storm-front surfers
What’s new: Some bats, like birds, migrate long distances. But these long-distance bat migrations have been somewhat of a mystery to researchers, especially since only a few species embark on them. Now, in a new study, researchers have mapped the odyssey of common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) using innovative tiny trackers. And the results have […]
Agribusiness giant Olam gets head start on EUDR; its suppliers, not so much
- Some smallholder farmers, associations and suppliers in exporting countries are concerned about their readiness for the EU’s antideforestation law due to a lack of technology, information and resources.
- Meanwhile, leading agricultural commodity businesses such as Olam Agri and ofi say they expect to be ready before the legislation comes into force at the end of 2025.
- Olam Agri and ofi say they’ve developed and implemented advanced traceability and information systems to meet regulatory requirements, as well as other tools and technologies.
- But independent experts warn that pressure to meet the law’s obligations are leading to large companies dropping suppliers who aren’t ready, and pushing smallholders to switch to crops where traceability and sustainability aren’t strict requirements.

Tracking footprints to monitor wildlife: Interview with WildTrack’s Zoe Jewell
- WildTrack, a U.S.-based nonprofit, uses footprints as a noninvasive way of identifying and tracking wildlife.
- The organization has developed an artificial intelligence model that can identify 17 species, including rhinos, lions, leopards and polar bears.
- The footprint identification model has been used to identify the home range of fishers in California, support antipoaching efforts in Botswana, and understand human-wildlife conflict in South America.

Jumbo collaring effort reveals key elephant movement corridors
- Scientists and conservationists have collaborated to create what is possibly the largest database of GPS-collared elephants.
- The database contains 4 million GPS data points that were collected by collaring 300 African elephants in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, home to the largest population of African elephants in the world.
- Based on the movement of elephants, the team assessed the landscape to identify key areas and corridors for conservation purposes.
- The findings have already been used to identify small-scale movement corridors for elephants in Zambia.

Indonesia, EU reconcile forest data ahead of new rules on deforestation-free trade
- The Indonesian government and its European Union counterparts are ironing out differences in their forest and commodity supply chain data ahead of a looming deadline that could shut Indonesian commodities out of the EU market.
- Under the EU’s Deforestation Regulation, commodities associated with deforestation will be barred as of next year from entering the EU market; Indonesia is a major producer of four of the seven listed commodities: palm oil, coffee, cocoa and rubber.
- To be allowed to export these commodities to the EU, producers and traders must be able to show that they weren’t sourced from land that was deforested to grow them, but the forest maps used by Indonesia and the EU have several differences that need to be reconciled.
- The EU ambassador to Indonesia says his side is working with local authorities to resolve the matter, which he attributes to the differing definition of “forest” as used by the European and Indonesian authorities.

Bangladesh uses satellite transmitters on saltwater crocodiles in Asia’s first
- On March 13, the Bangladesh forest department tagged satellite transmitters on two saltwater crocodiles for the first time in Asia and released them in the Sundarbans waters.
- So far, four saltwater crocodiles — three from captivity and one from the wild — have been tagged and the preparation is in place to tag more.
- The forest department has already started collecting data using the satellite transmitters to understand the crocodile’s habits in this ecosystem and identify nesting its hotspots, ecology, mortality rate and habitat range.
- Experts say the satellite data will play an important role in crocodile conservation in Bangladesh, where the species is critically endangered, and will help the authorities make proper conservation management plans to protect it.

PalmWatch platform pushes for farm-to-fork traceability of palm oil
- PalmWatch, an online, open-source tool, is seeking to bring greater transparency to the global palm oil supply web, to better help consumers trace the impact of the commodity.
- A key hurdle to transparency has long been the fact that batches of palm oil and their derivatives sourced by consumer brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo potentially contain product from hundreds of mills processing palm fruit from thousands of plantations.
- By scraping various websites with mill disclosure data and standardizing the information in one place, PalmWatch can come up with a supply chain map that can link specific mills, suppliers and consumer brands to harms associated with palm oil.
- Advocacy groups have welcomed the launch of the tool, saying it will allow for improved targeting of campaigns to get brands to push for more sustainable practices in their supply chains.

Ancient giant river dolphin species found in the Peruvian Amazon
- Paleontologists discovered a fossilized skull of a newly described species of giant freshwater dolphin in the Peruvian Amazon, which lived around 16 million years ago and is considered the largest-known river dolphin ever found.
- The ancient creature, measuring 3-3.5 meters (9.8-11.5 feet), was surprisingly related to South Asian river dolphins rather than the local, living Amazon river pink dolphin and shared highly developed facial crests used for echolocation.
- The discovery comes at a time when the six existing species of modern river dolphins face unprecedented threats, with their combined populations decreasing by 73% since the 1980s due to unsustainable fishing practices, climate change, pollution, illegal mining and infrastructure development.
- Conservation efforts are underway, including the signing of the Global Declaration for River Dolphins by nine countries and successful initiatives in China and Indonesia, highlighting the importance of protecting these critical species that serve as indicators of river ecosystem health.

Mini radio tags help track ‘murder hornets’ and other invasive insects
- Our increasingly interconnected world is moving insect pests around the planet, introducing invasive species that threaten agriculture and local ecologies.
- But tech is fighting back: Researchers have developed radio-tracking tags small enough to attach to invasive yellow-legged hornets in the U.K. and Europe, allowing scientists to find and destroy their nests.
- Researchers are now deploying this technology in the U.S., to address yellow-legged hornets in Georgia and northern giant hornets in the Pacific Northwest.

New trackers bring prairie dogs’ little-known underground life to light
- Researchers have deployed a new tracker that helps them monitor prairie dogs and track their movements underground.
- The tracker uses sensors, including accelerometers and magnetometers, and combines them with GPS technology to enable researchers to retrace the trajectories of the animals.
- Prairie dogs dig up complex burrow systems and spend most of their time underground, making their movements elusive.
- During initial trials, researchers were able to use the trackers to reconstruct the trajectories of prairie dogs while they were underground.

Conservationists look to defy gloomy outlook for Borneo’s sun bears
- Sun bears are keystone species, helping sustain healthy tropical forests. Yet they’re facing relentless challenges to their survival from deforestation, habitat degradation, poaching and indiscriminate snaring; fewer than 10,000 are thought to remain across the species’ entire global range.
- A bear rehabilitation program in Malaysian Borneo cares for 44 sun bears rescued from captivity and the pet trade and has been releasing bears back into the wild since 2015. But with threats in the wild continuing unabated, success has been mixed.
- A recent study indicates that as few as half of the released bears are still alive, demonstrating that rehabilitation alone will never be enough to tackle the enormous threats and conservation issues facing the bears in the wild.
- Preventing bears from being poached from the wild in the first place should be the top priority, experts say, calling for a holistic approach centered on livelihood support for local communities through ecotourism to encourage lifestyles that don’t involve setting snares that can kill bears.

Nepal’s tiger conservation gets tech boost with AI-powered deer tracking
- Endangered tigers in Nepal heavily rely on spotted deer as their primary prey, making their conservation crucial.
- Researchers in Nepal are using vertical cameras and AI technology to track and profile individual spotted deer (Axis axis), similar to the methods used for tigers.
- However, the project has faced challenges, including low recapture rates and difficulty in distinguishing individual deer in the wild.

Barely making it: A conversation with ‘Eight Bears’ author Gloria Dickie
- Gloria Dickie is an award-winning journalist who has documented the state of the world’s eight remaining bear species in a compelling new book, “Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future.”
- Despite the conservation gains made by iconic bear species like the giant panda and the brown bear, most bear species remain at risk.
- In this podcast conversation, the author shares the context behind why some bear species, such as the Andean bear and the polar bear, which face climate-related threats, are much harder to protect.
- “It’s quite tricky for bears threatened by climate change and not just habitat loss,” she says on this episode.

Wildlife management platform EarthRanger goes mobile with new app
- Since it was launched in 2017, the EarthRanger software has helped protected-area managers, law enforcement agencies and wildlife conservationists to collect, visualize and track data from the field on a single platform.
- In a bid to be nimbler, the software has now gone mobile with an app that builds on the functions of the web-based platform; it also helps rangers use their phones as tracking devices.
- The app has already been used to track elephants as well as rangers in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, as well as to plan the response to an oil spill off the coast of the Philippines.

AI unlocks secrets of Amazon river dolphins’ behavior, no tagging required
- Freshwater dolphins in the Amazon Basin navigate through flooded forests during the wet season using their flexible bodies and echolocation clicks.
- Researchers have combined advanced acoustic monitoring and AI to study the habits of endangered pink river dolphins (boto) and tucuxi in seasonally flooded habitats.
- They used hydrophones to record sounds in various habitats and employed convolutional neural networks (CNN) to classify the sounds as either echolocation clicks, boat engine noises, or rain — with high accuracy.
- Understanding the dolphins’ movements and behaviors can aid conservation efforts to protect these endangered species, as they face various threats such as fishing entanglement, dam construction, mining, agriculture and cattle ranching.

Expedition catches Amazon river dolphins to help save this iconic pink species
- In December, researchers gathered extensive data on a population of Amazon river dolphins in the Amanã Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.
- They fitted some of the dolphins with radio transmitters to help map their preferred zones and identify priority regions for species protection.
- At the top of the food chain, the river dolphins play important roles as regulators of Amazonian river life and as environmental indicators for potential zoonoses.
- Hydroelectric dams, fishing, and contamination from mining pose the greatest threats to the species across its range.

Conservationists unite to tackle Latin America’s dog threat to wild cats
- Across Latin America, free-ranging and domestic dogs pose a threat to endangered wildlife, including several small cat species, conservationists say.
- Dogs entering forests or protected areas can disturb wildlife, directly prey upon them, decimate prey populations, and also spread disease.
- Last year, small-cat conservationists from Mexico to Chile united to vaccinate dogs in multiple countries to raise awareness of the problem and mitigate the threat.
- A second phase of this international campaign is planned this May, potentially focused on other threatened species.

Uterine implants and underwater ultrasounds aim to demystify shark births
- For years, studying the reproductive biology of sharks has depended on capturing the animals and dissecting them.
- Scientists recently developed the Birth Alert Tag, an egg-shaped satellite transmitter that can be implanted in the uterus of pregnant sharks to document the location and timing of births.
- In another development, scientists took ultrasound readings of whale sharks and sampled their blood to detect if they were pregnant.
- The new methods aim to help researchers determine sharks’ pregnancy status and the location of shark births; one goal is to inform the establishment of corridors to protect the animals, which are among the most vulnerable vertebrates on Earth.

In Calakmul, water troughs offer possible solution to human-wildlife conflict
- Beekeepers near the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve are working with conservationists to provide water troughs for wild animals in an effort to reduce conflicts with farmers and livestock.
- More than 70 species, including Baird’s tapir, jaguars (Panthera onca), ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) and coatis (genus Nasua), have used the troughs as climate change exacerbates water shortages in the biosphere during the dry season.
- Conservationists caution that such projects must be implemented carefully so as not to introduce pathogens into the wild or create “predator traps” where wild carnivores’ prey congregate around artificial water sources.

Fishy business of squid vessels needs stronger regulation, study says
- Experts are drawing attention to the unregulated nature of squid fishing, which they say could lead to the overexploitation of species, allow illegal fishing activity to flourish, and contribute to inequity.
- New research suggests that squid fishing increased by 68% across the global oceans between 2017 and 2020, and that 86% took place in unregulated parts of the ocean.
- China’s distant-water fishing fleet accounts for 92% of this tracked squid fishing activity.
- Experts say that unregulated squid fishing needs to be addressed with better management, monitoring and transparency.

Forest management tool could help rein in rampant wildlife trade in Bangladesh
- The Bangladesh Forest Department has introduced a Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) to help stop wildlife trafficking in several of the country’s protected forest areas.
- The pilot program follows the success of SMART technology used in the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, where a University of Calcutta study shows illegal logging and poaching have dropped significantly since the introduction of the tool.
- According to the Wildlife Conservation Society, major gaps in information about wildlife trade chains hamper the government’s ability to stop wildlife crimes.
- Experts say SMART patrolling should be introduced in protected forest areas across the country.

Should more wildlife trade be legal and regulated? It’s complicated, say scientists
- As the global international trade treaty approaches its half century anniversary, some scientists say it needs an overhaul to make its structures fit for 21st century.
- Allowing for legal, regulated trade could be better than banning it for many species, they argue, referring to successful case studies where local communities were involved in sustainable trade.
- But some conservationists are worried that changing the way CITES operates will be bad news for endangered wildlife and point out it has been a significant factor in the survival of species such as elephants and tigers.

In Gabon, camera-trap developers find the ideal proving ground for their craft
- Rich in forests and biodiversity, the Central African country of Gabon has long proved a fruitful testing ground for camera-trap technology.
- Snapshots of species once thought extinct in the country, such as lions, have helped inform conservation policy, including the establishment of national parks and protection of vast swaths of forest.
- The wealth of data generated means there are large data sets from various projects that researchers just don’t have the resources or time to sift through — which is why Gabon has also become a testing ground for artificial intelligence tools to aid in that task.
- Key limitations remain the cost of camera traps and the fact that many forms of data capture and analysis simply can’t be done by camera traps or AI, and still require human involvement.

Where do the guitarfish go? Scientists and fishers team up to find out
- In late March and early April of this year, a team of researchers and local fishers caught, sampled and released more than 50 sharks and rays in the Bijagós Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau, including several threatened species.
- A first for conservation, researchers tagged members of a critically endangered ray species, the blackchin guitarfish (Glaucostegus cemiculus), with satellite transmitters.
- Team leader Guido Leurs says the research will provide crucial information for policymakers to better protect sharks and rays in Guinea-Bissau.
- Fisheries management within the archipelago, which spans 12,950 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) and 88 islands, is a challenge for the West African nation.

Data from droppings: Researchers draw up a genetic ID map for chimps
- As part of a broader project studying the cultural and genetic diversity of chimpanzees across Africa, researchers have used fecal samples from 48 sites across the continent to create a genetic identity data set of chimpanzees across the species’ range.
- The data set supports the division of chimpanzees into the four currently recognized subspecies, as well as shedding light on historic gene flow between subspecies and between chimpanzees and bonobos.
- The data set can help conservationists determine the genetic origin of chimpanzees confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade and identify poaching hotspots, researchers say.

‘Fitbit for whales’ and other tagging tech help reshape wildlife conservation
- Tagging technology has since the 1960s helped conservationists and researchers keep track of a wide range of wildlife species.
- But tags and collars can often be intrusive or invasive, acting as a source of stress to the animal and sometimes even undermining its survival.
- In recent years, researchers have developed new tag designs aimed at minimizing any impact their work might have on animals, while also providing a richer array of data.
- These solutions range from DIY radio collars made with cat collars, to bespoke tags for dolphins and whales that incorporate Apple Watch-like biometric sensors.

Smart Parks, the Dutch technologists tackling poaching with technology
- Smart Parks is a Netherlands-based organization deploying high tech and an R&D-focused approach to finding technological solutions to conservation problems.
- The organization is best-known for using LoRa (long range) wireless technology to create networks of connected sensors and devices within conservation areas.
- These are designed to help anti-poaching teams through access to real-time data such as animal locations, vehicle movements, and fence voltages, among other parameters.
- Working primarily in Africa, Smart Parks’ next phase of development is to add more sensors to tracking collars to collect additional data such as animal sounds and movement data, and then use machine learning to gain additional insights for research.

With sea ice melting, glacial ice could be a lifeline for polar bears
- Scientists recently discovered a new subpopulation of polar bears living in southeast Greenland that is genetically and behaviorally distinct.
- While most polar bears depend upon sea ice for survival, the polar bears in Southeast Greenland use pieces of glacial ice as habitat and hunting platforms.
- Large numbers of polar bears are expected to decline as climate change accelerates, but small populations may persist in places like this, where the pace of melting is expected to be slower, experts say.

A helping hand for red-footed tortoises making a comeback in Argentina
- Conservationists are releasing red-footed tortoises back into El Impenetrable National Park in Argentina’s Chaco province, in an effort to reintroduce the species to the region.
- The species is so rarely seen in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina that it’s believed to be locally extinct there.
- Red-footed tortoises are under threat due to the illegal pet trade, habitat destruction, and hunting for meat consumption.
- The species is the latest being reintroduced by Rewilding Argentina, which has already brought back species like jaguars and marsh deer to El Impenetrable.

As tiger numbers in Nepal and India grow, their freedom to roam shrinks
- Nepal is one of the few countries on track to double its tiger population this year from a 2010 baseline.
- But a growing sense of “animal nationalism” threatens to mar this success, with local media playing up the tigers’ travels across the border into India.
- The big cats, which don’t recognize political boundaries, have always roamed a wide range in this region, yet even this behavior is under threat as key corridors are restricted or cut off entirely by infrastructure projects by both countries.
- Conservationists have called for keeping nationalism out of planning and implementation of conservation efforts, for the sake of this iconic species.

Himalayan musk deer talk to each other through poop, but poachers are also listening
- A new study has indicated to scientists what poachers in Nepal may have long known: that Himalayan musk deer use their defecation sites as a sort of message board to communicate with one another.
- The endangered species is typically solitary and has limited vocalization, but its varied behavior at latrine sites — defecating, browsing, sniffing, scrapping and covering, and ignoring — appear to show efforts to convey messages to the other deer using the sites.
- Poachers may have long known about this behavior, and accordingly set their snares near latrine sites, where they target the male deer for their scent glands — prized for making perfume and traditional medicine.
- The authors of the new study say this finding could help improve conservation activities, including ensuring mating success for captive-breeding efforts.

Global ecosystem restoration progress: How and who’s tracking it?
- Nature-based climate solutions currently being widely touted include the restoration of the world’s degraded forests and other ecosystems in order to store more carbon. But while many restoration pledges have been made by many nations via many initiatives, the monitoring and tracking of their success remains murky.
- That’s because, while deforestation can easily be seen from satellites, effective and accurate ecosystem restoration tracking requires systems for long-term ground-truthing, for measuring carbon storage over decades, and for improvements in biodiversity and the boosting of local economies.
- Among the many ecosystem restoration initiatives now underway are the 2021 Glasgow Forest Declaration and the Bonn Challenge, along with the restoration commitments made as part of national emissions reductions plans under the Paris Climate Agreement (nationally determined contributions or NDCs).
- Strides toward better restoration tracking are being made by initiatives like the Bonn Challenge’s Restoration Barometer and the Brazilian Restoration and Reforestation Observatory — though more work is needed to secure globally accurate tracking.

Wildlife death toll from 2020 Pantanal fires tops 17 million, study finds
- A new study has found that nearly 17 million animals died in the Pantanal fires in 2020.
- The researchers came to this estimate by conducting distance sampling surveys, walking tracts of the Pantanal shortly after the fires and counting the number of dead vertebrates they encountered.
- However, the researchers say this is likely to be an underestimate since animals may have died underground or may have died later from burn injuries.
- The 2020 fires burned 4.5 million hectares (11 million acres) of the Pantanal, which is about 30% of the entire biome.

Translocation brings white rhinos to Rwanda, a new land for an old species
- On Nov. 29, 30 white rhinos were introduced to Akagera National Park in Rwanda from a private game reserve in South Africa.
- The relocation is aimed at establishing the species in a new range state and ensuring its survival into the future.
- Akagera National Park has not had a single high-value animal poached for the past 11 years, and has become a sanctuary for other translocated species such as lions and black rhinos, according to the NGO African Parks, which helps to manage Akagera.
- White rhinos are considered a near threatened species that under continual threat from poaching incidents.

DNA assessment confirms Gabon as last stronghold of forest elephants
- A new survey has found that there are more than 95,000 critically endangered forest elephants in Gabon, which is considered to be the last remaining stronghold for the species.
- The researchers came to this estimate after collecting elephant dung samples across Gabon and analyzing each sample’s genetic material.
- The survey found that forest elephants were present in about 90% of the country, in both protected and nonprotected areas.
- Forest elephants have been heavily poached in Gabon in the last couple of decades, with 25,000 killed in Gabon’s Minkébé National Park alone between 2004 and 2014.

Data-driven platform looks to clear up fog of palm oil traceability
- A new web-based monitoring platform, Palmoil.io, has been launched to help the palm oil industry fully trace its product back to its origin to make sure that it’s legally sourced and sustainably produced.
- Existing supply chain monitoring efforts remain fragmented, expensive and uneven as they struggle to trace palm oil product through a complex web of plantations and mills.
- Palmoil.io aims to address this by collecting and analyzing data on more than 2,000 palm mills, 480 refineries and crushers, and 400 high-risk plantations.
- The large, and growing, volume of data will enables Palmoil.io to trace palm oil product to its source and determine whether it’s associated with comes from deforestation, as well as human rights and labor violations or not.

Hungry like the maned wolf pup: Clips give rare glimpse of elusive canine
- New camera-trap clips show three maned wolf pups nursing and eating regurgitated food from their mother.
- This is the first time this behavior has been observed and documented in wild maned wolves, experts say.
- Wild maned wolves have recently recolonized Iberá National Park in Argentina, thanks to conservation efforts.

Tracking white-bellied pangolins in Nigeria, the new global trafficking hub
- Nigeria has in recent years become a major transit point for the illegal trade in pangolins, the scaly anteater known for being the most trafficked mammal in the world.
- With the four Asian pangolin species increasingly scarce, traffickers have made Nigeria their hub for collecting scales and meat from the four African species and shipping them to East Asia.
- In Cross River National Park, home to the elusive white-bellied pangolin, researcher Charles Emogor is working to both study the species and work with communities to end the poaching.
- “Until our government faces up to the fact that we’ve become a staging ground for the pangolin trade, I fear we’re only going to see more cross-border smuggling of scales, and more pangolin flesh for sale in wild meat markets,” he says.

The cat is back: Wild Amur tigers rebound in China, thanks to govt policies
- Camera trap footage taken between 2013 and 2018 revealed that about 55 endangered Amur tigers are now living in northeastern China.
- Experts say the tigers’ reemergence in the region is largely due to Chinese national policies favoring environmental stewardship, including the Natural Forest Protection Project and the establishment of several reserves.
- According to a recent paper, northeastern China could actually support about 310 tigers, including 119 breeding females, if further efforts are taken to minimize human pressures and ecological corridors are established between tiger habitats.
- While tiger numbers are growing in China, the species continues to face threats of poaching, habitat loss and fragmentation, and human-wildlife conflict.

Find my elephant: The conservation apps revolutionizing how rangers work
- Conservationists around the world have increasingly turned to technology to adapt and respond to rising challenges in protected areas.
- One example is EarthRanger, which collects and integrates information from several remote sensors and allows users to visualize data under one platform.
- The software solution helps conservationists with security, ecological management, and human-wildlife conflict, by streamlining conservation data into a system that helps them make informed decisions rapidly.
- While promising, the technology has encountered teething problems: lack of internet infrastructure, the need for an extensive network of sensors, and high data literacy to use the technology.

End of deforestation tracker for Brazil’s Cerrado an ‘incalculable loss’
- For 20 years, Brazil’s space agency, INPE, has run a program monitoring deforestation and fire risk in the Cerrado savanna, a global biodiversity hotspot.
- But that program may be shut down at the end of this year due to a lack of money, after a funding agreement with the World Bank ended last year.
- Scientists, civil society groups, and the soy industry have all spoken out against allowing the program to end, calling it an “incalculable loss”; soy traders, in particular, depend on the data to prove their commodity is deforestation-free.
- INPE’s data is also crucial in guiding the work of environmental regulators, which has grown increasingly urgent in light of projections that the entire biome could collapse within 30 years under current rates of deforestation.

African wild dogs return to southern Malawi for the first time in 20 years
- Fourteen endangered African wild dogs were recently translocated to Malawi in an attempt to reestablish populations in Liwonde National Park and Majete Wildlife Reserve.
- There are currently only about 6,600 African wild dogs, including 700 breeding pairs, left on the African continent.
- Experts say the success of the translocation will hinge upon whether the dogs reproduce and form a larger population, and also if they manage to stay away from danger if they wander outside the reserve.

For Atlantic sea turtles, Sargasso Sea is home during the ‘lost years’
- In a new study, researchers tracked the movements of young green turtles and found that they navigated toward the Sargasso Sea, rather than drifting passively along the currents in the North Atlantic Ocean.
- While there have been theories and anecdotal evidence that turtle hatchlings travel to the Sargasso Sea and spend their “lost years” in the region, this is the first study that uses satellite tracking to confirm that green turtles are indeed going there.
- A previous study by the same group of researchers also tracked the movements of loggerhead turtles into the Sargasso Sea, although their journeys were found to be more nuanced.
- Experts say the study draws attention to the importance of protecting the Sargasso Sea and tackling issues such as plastic pollution.

Female putty-nosed monkeys get their males to run defense against predators
- A new study found that female putty-nosed monkeys use alarm calls to recruit males to be their “hired guns” when a predator is detected, only stopping their vocalizations once males have been enlisted to ward off the threat.
- Recruited males will vocalize their participation with a “pyow” call, which may aid their reproductive chances in the future, according to the study.
- The researchers also observed that male putty-nosed monkeys emitted a newly described “kek” call when responding to a simulation of a leopard moving along the forest floor.
- The researchers say that this study, as well as related studies, can aid conservation efforts for the putty-nosed monkey, a near-threatened species, and broaden our understanding of communicative and cognitive capacities of non-human primate species.

Electronic ears listen to poachers in a key Central American jaguar habitat
- The international NGO Panthera has been using acoustical monitoring systems to support their anti-poaching patrols in Guatemala and Honduras since 2017.
- The acoustical recorders can pick up gunshots, conversations and wildlife sounds, and help rangers plan their patrols to be more effective in combating illegal activities.
- Panthera is particularly concerned about protecting the jaguar, which is threatened by poaching, wildlife trafficking and habitat loss in this region.

Big cat comeback: Jaguars prowl Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands after 70 years
- Conservationists recently released three jaguars — a mother and two cubs — into Gran Iberá Park in northeastern Argentina’s Corrientes province in an attempt to rewild the local ecosystem.
- Jaguars haven’t been present in the Iberá Wetlands for the past 70 years, after hunting and habitat loss drove them to local extinction.
- The ultimate goal of the jaguar reintroduction program is to reestablish a healthy, genetically diverse population of jaguars in Gran Iberá Park, which has the capacity to hold about 100 jaguars, according to conservationists.

Cat fight: Jaguar ambushes ocelot in rare camera trap footage
- Camera trap footage revealed a jaguar killing an ocelot at a waterhole in the Maya Biosphere Reserve of northern Guatemala.
- While this kind of killing event is considered rare, it can occur when two predator species are competing with each other over resources such as water.
- Prolonged drought, compounded by climate change, may have influenced this event by making water scarcer than usual, according to the researchers who documented the incident.
- However, other experts say that climate change wouldn’t have necessarily influenced this behavior since ocelots and jaguars have lived together for a long time.

Whale of a find: Scientists spot beaked whale believed to be a new species
- Scientists on board a Sea Shepherd vessel say they found a new species of beaked whale near the San Benito Islands off Mexico’s Pacific coast.
- The species differs visually and acoustically from other beaked whales species, according to the researchers.
- The team took photographs, video recordings and acoustical recordings of the species, and also performed environmental genetic sampling to help confirm the existence of a new species.
- However, other experts say that detailed descriptions of the animals’ physical features and skeletal structure are needed before a new species can be accurately identified.

Herd opportunity: Hundreds of elephants return to DRC’s Virunga
- A group of about 580 savanna elephants recently returned to Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after crossing over from Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda.
- The reappearance of the elephants brings hope to a park that’s been beset with civil unrest, violence, and poaching for decades.
- In May, Virunga National Park closed due to the spread of COVID-19, which caused serious financial damage to the park.

The Amazon’s short-eared dog was thought to be a scavenger. Now there’s video
- After installing a camera trap near a dead armadillo, a biologist unexpectedly recorded video of the elusive short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis) scavenging on the carcass, and subsequently published a field report about the incident.
- While there was previous anecdotal evidence that short-eared dogs scavenge, this field report provides the first published documentation of this behavior, according to its author.
- In general, very little is known about the short-eared dog, including information about the species’ biology and ecology, although researchers are working to fill these gaps.

A warming Arctic is changing animal migrations, decades of tracking shows
- The newly launched Arctic Animal Movement Archive (AAMA) includes 28 years of terrestrial and marine animal tracking studies on more than 96 species across the Arctic, Arctic marine, and subarctic (including boreal forests and taiga).
- “The Arctic is undergoing some of the most rapid climate change on the planet,” one author said. The resulting warmer winters, earlier spring snowmelt, and the loss of ice are affecting animal movement.
- Researchers conducted their first case studies using the AAMA and found large-scale patterns in the way caribou, moose, wolves, golden eagles, and bears are responding to climate change. The findings were published in the journal Science.
- In their analyses, researchers found that the northernmost herds of caribou have begun giving birth earlier in the spring. After mild winters, immature golden eagles arrived earlier in the spring to breeding grounds than adult birds.

Video: Vets hail ‘victory’ as jaguar burned in Pantanal fires returns to wild
- This year, fires in the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland region, burned through about 4.1 million hectares (10.1 million acres), which constitutes about 28% of the region.
- A 3-year-old jaguar caught in the fires suffered third-degree burns on all four of his paws as he ran across burning peat.
- In September, the jaguar was rescued by a group of veterinarians and delivered to a clinic that helped treat his wounds.
- A month later, rains had extinguished most of the fires, and the jaguar was released in the same spot from which he was rescued.

New evidence suggests China’s ‘dark’ vessels poached in Galápagos waters
- A fleet of Chinese-owned fishing vessels crowded along the edge of Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) near the Galápagos Islands between June and September, prompting international concern that they would illegally fish in Ecuador’s territorial waters.
- Several vessels turned off their GPS-based automatic identification systems (AIS), possibly to avoid discovery while partaking in illegal activities, several sources found.
- An analysis of new data, this time from radio signals, not GPS, detected unidentified ships within the Galápagos EEZ, with several of the boats operating immediately adjacent to the Chinese fleet.
- The new data provide additional, but still inconclusive, evidence that the Chinese fleet may have entered Ecuador’s EEZ.

The other Corona: Rescued pangolin is a rehabilitation success story
- In February, a 2-year-old female pangolin named Cory was rescued in a sting operation led by the African Pangolin Working Group.
- Cory was in poor condition immediately after her rescue, but she responded well to rehabilitation, likely due to her young age.
- She was released on Manyoni Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, where pangolins have been ecologically extinct for the past 30 to 40 years.

Sea turtles often lose their way, but always reach their destination
- A new study found that green sea turtles rely on a “crude map” to navigate the ocean, often going several hundred kilometers off course before successfully arriving at their destination.
- Using GPS tracking devices, the research team tracked the migrations of female green turtles from nesting grounds on Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean to foraging grounds on isolated oceanic islands.
- Green turtles demonstrate a particularly high fidelity to foraging grounds, which made them an ideal species to study.
- The researchers say they hope their findings will help inform conservation efforts to protect green turtles, which are an endangered species.

‘It’s a success’: Pangolins return to a region where they were once extinct
- Temminck’s pangolins have been “ecologically extinct” in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province Africa for the past 30 or 40 years, but a new program managed by the African Pangolin Working Group is reintroducing the scaly anteaters back into this region.
- Pangolins rescued from the illegal wildlife trade tend to be physically ill and mentally stressed, and need to go through a lengthy rehabilitation process before they can be released.
- Instead of simply releasing pangolins back into the wild, the African Pangolin Working Group puts the animals through a “soft release” program, and continues to closely monitor them through GPS satellite and VHF radio tracking tags.
- In 2019, seven pangolins were released at Phinda Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal; two died of natural causes, but the remaining five are doing well.

Lockdown allowed illegal fishing to spike in Philippines, satellite data suggest
- Satellite data indicate a spike in the number of commercial fishing vessels operating in waters within 15 kilometers (9 miles) of the Philippine coast — a zone that’s off-limits for commercial fishing.
- The increase coincided with the peak fishing season and the imposition of a lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when marine patrols were reduced.
- Known as municipal waters, this coastal band is restricted to small-scale fishing, in order to protect the coral reefs and marine habitats that thrive there.
- Legislation mandating the use of the tracking devices on commercial fishing boats has been on the books since 2015, but the implementation continues to be delayed amid opposition from the industry.

Baby humpback whales bulk up in Hawaii ahead of migration [VIDEO]
- New video reveals baby humpback whales nursing in Hawaii, a sight rarely seen by humans.
- A team of researchers used non-invasive suction cups to outfit seven baby humpback whales with special tags for recording data on nursing as well as other whale behaviors.
- During their time in Hawaii, the whale calves must drink enough milk to fatten up for a one to two-month migration back to Alaska.
- The researchers hope to understand the needs of mother whales and their calves during their time in the tropical breeding grounds and for their long migration.

Does Lucius Fox know? Tiny tech tracks bats (and more)
- A newly developed tracking device that fits like a tiny backpack allows scientists to monitor small animals.
- The wireless biologging network (WBN) device allows for proximity sensing, high-resolution tracking, and long-range remote data download all at the same time.
- The capability of the WBN device to track associations is providing scientists with new insights into animal behavior and conservation solutions.
- The device, weighing just 2 grams (0.07 ounces), is designed to be glued onto the back of animals like bats and eventually fall off after a few weeks.

Mug shots and public pics join the dots of whale sharks’ Southeast Asian trips
- A study blending old and new techniques has recorded young whale sharks returning to the same spot in the Philippines after visiting Malaysia and Indonesia.
- Scientists recorded the second-biggest aggregation of whale sharks in the Philippines in Honda Bay in the province of Palawan.
- Compared to other whale shark groups in the Philippines, the one in Honda Bay is made up mostly of juvenile males that feed on small fish and krill.
- The discovery underscores the need for stronger collaboration between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, all part of the Sulu-Sulawesi Seascape Project under the Coral Triangle Initiative.

Coronavirus outbreak may spur Southeast Asian action on wildlife trafficking
- Illegal wildlife trafficking remains a perennial problem in Southeast Asia, but with the ongoing spread of the new coronavirus, there’s added impetus for governments in the region to clamp down on the illicit trade.
- The coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, has infected more than 90,000 people worldwide and killed more than 3,000, according to the World Health Organization.
- Initial findings, though not conclusive, have linked the virus to pangolins, the most trafficked mammal on Earth and one of the mainstays of the illegal wildlife trade in Southeast Asia that feeds the Chinese market.
- Despite having a regional cooperation framework designed to curb wildlife trafficking, Southeast Asian governments have yet to agree on and finance a sustainability plan to strengthen efforts against the illegal trade.

For tiger moms, the work-life balance struggle is real, study finds
- For the first time ever, scientists were able to document the behavior of a GPS-collared Amur tiger in the wild for the four months before and four months after the birth of her cubs.
- The study, published in the journal Mammal Research, reveals that the new tiger mom made time for her cubs by abandoning defense of her territory, traveling more rapidly from kills, making fewer but larger kills, and resting less.
- The Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), sometimes referred to as the Siberian tiger, is currently listed as an endangered species on the IUCN Red List.
- Poaching is now the biggest threat to the wild Amur tigers, as tiger parts continue to be in high demand throughout Asia for use as ornaments, in traditional medicine, and as a status symbol.

Protected areas best conserve mammalian diversity when connected with corridors, biologged weasels show
- For protected area (PA) networks to be an effective conservation tool, they should be well-connected to allow species movement through unprotected landscapes, but questions remain on what configuration of natural features can best facilitate animal movement.
- A recent study compared three theories of animal movement (structurally intact corridors, least-cost paths, and stepping stones) by analyzing the fine-scale movements of GPS-tagged fishers, a member of the weasel family. They found the tagged fishers consistently moved along structurally intact, natural corridors across a PA network.
- With the Aichi 2020 Biodiversity Targets in mind, the authors highlight that simply increasing the number of protected areas alone may not achieve the objectives of the protected area network amidst an increasingly fragmented landscape; the conservation of natural corridors between PAs may be equally important, something for future planners to consider.

Campaigners push for reform of outdated CITES wildlife trade system
- CITES, the international treaty that regulates the trade in wildlife products, dates back to 1975, but some of the systems it uses have not changed in that time.
- Campaigners say this lack of modernization has allowed the illegal wildlife trade to proliferate to the tune of more than $250 billion a year.
- Better regulation would reduce the scale of the illegal wildlife trade and ensure legal commerce is truly sustainable, they say.

What happens to an ecotourism town when the wildlife doesn’t show?
- Since the mid-1990s, the town of Donsol in the Philippines has based its economy around tourists viewing whale sharks.
- Whale sharks are migratory fish. And while they showed up in reliable numbers during the first decade of Donsol’s venture into shark tourism, their numbers have become highly unpredictable in the past decade for reasons still unknown.
- Tourism has declined as well, with 2018 registering the fewest visitor arrivals since whale shark tourism started. The local economy, which it had buoyed, is now flagging, although 2019 seems off to a strong start for both whale sharks and tourists.
- Wildlife tourism, by nature, is susceptible to biodiversity loss and changes in animal behavior; it places host communities on a thin line between profit and loss.

Angola pledges $60m to fund landmine clearance in national parks
- The Angolan government has announced a $60 million commitment to clear landmines in Luengue-Luiana and Mavinga national parks in the country’s southeast.
- The region is part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area — home to incredible natural biodiversity, but also one of the most heavily mined regions of Angola.
- International funding for landmine clearance has fallen by 80 percent over the last 10 years, and without new funding Angola will miss its target of clearing all landmines by 2025.
- The HALO Trust, a demining NGO, and the Angolan government hope that clearance of landmines will stimulate conservation in southeastern Angola and provide alternative livelihoods such as ecotourism to alleviate poverty and diversify the country’s economy away from oil.

Tiny tracking tags help decode how echolocating bats navigate
- Although navigation in echolocating bats has been studied for a long time, questions remain on how bats differentiate among echoes from different objects.
- Researchers designed a small, lightweight tag that can capture movement and sound information in three dimensions to create a map of a bat’s sensory environment.
- The data helped researchers pinpoint the movements of bats during flight and while catching prey, as well as how echoes from various objects differ.
- One-third of bat species are threatened with extinction or lack basic ecological data, so such information can help scientists and wildlife managers understand bats’ foraging behavior and develop better measures for their conservation.

‘Landscape of fearlessness’: bushbuck emboldened following top-predator decline in Mozambique
- Bushbuck in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park have become increasingly fearless in their foraging habits, changing from foraging exclusively in woodland areas to braving open floodplains.
- Following years of civil war, populations of large herbivores and carnivores in Gorongosa declined by over 90 percent, with some top predators completely extirpated.
- Researchers from Princeton University conducted experiments using state-of-the-art equipment to establish whether the bushbucks’ use of floodplains for foraging was due to the decline in predation threat.
- Following experimentally simulated predation events, bushbuck significantly increased their use of tree cover, indicating that the reintroduction of top predators would restore a ‘landscape of fear’.

Creating a high-tech island to save one of the world’s rarest birds
- Scientists in New Zealand are combining tracking, genomics, and drone technologies to save the kākāpō, the giant flightless parrot nearly eradicated by invasive predators, such as dogs, rats, and cats brought by human settlers.
- Data loggers on a predator-free island read information emitted by transmitters worn by each of the birds and send the data to the research team; the information tells researchers where birds are nesting, when birds are sick, and when (and with whom) a given bird mated.
- The team supplements natural kākāpō breeding with artificial insemination, including flying a sperm-carrying drone that can swiftly move sperm from a male to an appropriate female across the island, which the researchers believe helps keep the sperm more viable when it reaches the female.
- For this, scientists “match” male and female kākāpō using genetic analysis to determine how closely related the two birds are and choose mates that are most distantly related. The research team is reviewing genomic data from all adult kākāpō for clues about fertility and disease.

‘Judas’ snakes lead scientists on a high-tech Easter egg hunt for pythons
- Scientists are exploring various technologies to address the spread of highly invasive Burmese pythons, which have devastated native mammal and bird populations across much of southern Florida.
- Researchers who recently captured a large pregnant Burmese python did so using the “Judas” technique: the radio-tagging of adult pythons that will approach others of the opposite sex during the breeding season, “betraying” them to the research teams.
- More recently, separate research teams have trialed the use of environmental DNA (eDNA) to determine the spatial distribution, range limits, and expansion rates of Burmese pythons in the region. They found python eDNA within a wildlife refuge, indicating that the invaded area extends further north than previously thought and that pythons are likely resident there.

Solving the mystery of the UK’s vanishing hen harriers
- The numbers of breeding hen harriers, one of England’s rarest birds and a protected species, dropped sharply in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
- To better understand why hen harriers were vanishing, researchers tracked the movements of 58 birds using satellite-based tags in conjunction with remote sensing land management data.
- Birds with tags that stopped transmitting spent their last week of life predominantly on moors where hunters shoot grouse and were 10 times more likely to disappear or die when grouse moors dominated their ranges, suggesting they were killed.
- The findings indicated that 72 percent of the tagged harriers were either confirmed or considered very likely to have been illegally killed.

Those kicks were fast as lightning: Kangaroo rats evade deadly snake strikes
- A research team has shown that desert kangaroo rats fend off predatory rattlesnakes through a combination of speedy reaction times, powerful near-vertical leaps, and mid-air, ninja-style kicks.
- Locating snakes through radio tracking and filming snake-kangaroo rat interactions with high-speed video cameras enabled the team to analyze strike and reaction speed, distance and angle the rats moved to avoid being bitten, and aspects of the impressive maneuverability displayed by most kangaroo rats in the recordings.
- About 81 percent of recorded snake strikes were accurate, yet the snake actually bit the kangaroo rat in just 47 percent of the strikes and latched on long enough in just 22 percent of strikes to actually kill and eat the kangaroo rat.
- The slowed-down videos demonstrate the importance of kangaroo rats’ physical features, including long tails and powerful legs, and mid-air maneuverability in escaping predation.

Something smells fishy: Scientists uncover illegal fishing using shark tracking devices
- Sharks become unlikely detectives as marine ecologists discover a link between their acoustic telemetry data and the presence of illegal fishing vessels.
- Researchers acoustically tagged 95 silvertip and grey reef sharks to assess whether the creation of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Marine Protected Area was helping to protect these species.
- Detailed in a recently released paper, the almost simultaneous loss of 15 acoustic tags coincided with the capture of two illegal fishing vessels, arrested for having 359 sharks on board.
- While helping to map sharks’ movements around the reef, scientists expect that they will be able to use data collected from the acoustic tags to predict the presence of illegal fishing vessels.

Reducing human-elephant encounters with calls, texts, and digital signs
- The Hassan district of Karnataka, India has been a hotbed of human-elephant encounters for years and a challenge for forest authorities, who have been translocating crop-raiding elephants for decades.
- Researchers have replicated an elephant alert system that combines signs, voice calls, and text messaging used in the elephant corridors of neighboring Tamil Nadu’s Valparai region to reduce negative interactions between people and elephants in Hassan.
- Using familiar technologies, the new system has reduced annual human fatalities in the region from several to nearly zero.

Blue whales remember best times and places to find prey
- A new study demonstrates that blue whales in the northern Pacific Ocean use their memories, instead of cues in the environment, to guide them to the best feeding spots.
- The researchers used 10 years of data to discern the movements of 60 blue whales.
- They compared the whales’ locations with spots with high concentrations of prey over the same period.
- The whales’ reliance on memory could make them vulnerable to changes in the ocean brought about by climate change.

As animal tagging goes cutting-edge, ethical questions abound
- An increasing number of animal tracking devices, known as biologgers, also measure environmental variables such as sound, temperature, and ocean salinity.
- Data from biologgers complement information on an animal’s movements and help scientists understand its environment, but can have measurable effects on the animal’s behavior or reproduction.
- As the field of biologging rapidly grows, scientists are trying to develop ethical frameworks for applying devices to wild animals.

A ‘FitBit for squid’ could help track the ocean’s squishier species
- The ITAG, a neutrally buoyant sensor device for soft-bodied invertebrates, is currently in development through joint research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Monterey Bay Aquatic Research Institute.
- The device has shown success in tracking animals such as squid and jellyfish as they respond to environmental changes.
- The casing is 3D printable, and the electronics array will be open-sourced, so scientists may quickly develop tracking devices for other marine invertebrates previously difficult to monitor.
- The current ITAG versions are smaller and more easily retrievable than a 2015 prototype, but researchers are still working to bring the size down and the retrieval rates up.

10 ways conservation tech shifted into auto in 2018
- Conservation scientists are increasingly automating their research and monitoring work, to make their analyses faster and more consistent; moreover, machine learning algorithms and neural networks constantly improve as they process additional information.
- Pattern recognition detects species by their appearance or calls; quantifies changes in vegetation from satellite images; tracks movements by fishing ships on the high seas.
- Automating even part of the analysis process, such as eliminating images with no animals, substantially reduces processing time and cost.
- Automated recognition of target objects requires a reference database: the species and objects used to create the algorithm determine the universe of species and objects the system will then be able to identify.

Satellite trackers help fight vultures’ extinction in southern Africa
- Vultures in southern Africa are being killed, mainly by eating carcasses poisoned by farmers, and in collisions with power lines and wind turbines.
- Concerned about population declines, the Maloti-Drakensberg Vulture Project began tracking vulture movements with small GPS transmitters, only to find them dying at a rapid rate.
- The three-dimensional tracking data showing the overlap between vulture breeding and roosting areas resulted in cancellation of a pair of proposed wind farms in Lesotho and a call for more ecologically informed siting of needed renewable energy infrastructure.

For the birds: Innovations enable tracking of even small flying animals
- Advances in satellite communications have revolutionized wildlife telemetry, yet tracking the movements of small animals, especially ones that fly, and marine species, which rarely break the ocean’s surface, has remained a challenge.
- In a November 20th virtual meetup on next-generation wildlife tracking, three speakers introduced developments that have broadened telemetry’s reach to new species and new types of data being collected.
- Recent innovations — including the ICARUS tracking system, hybridization of communications platforms, and miniaturization of sensors — are producing tiny solar-powered tracking tags and tags carrying various environmental sensors that function within private networks flexible enough to use the most efficient of several communications technologies available at a given site.

In pursuit of the rare bird that vanishes for half the year
- Until recently, the habits and habitats of the Bengal florican remained a mystery: males were easily seen in their seasonally flooded grassland habitat during the breeding season but effectively disappeared for half the year.
- Researchers in India and Nepal combined field surveys, satellite telemetry and remote sensing to model the distribution and assess the critically endangered bird’s movements, survival and home ranges.
- After years of not knowing the birds’ non-breeding whereabouts, the study found that Bengal floricans leave their protected, seasonally flooded breeding areas in favor of unprotected low-intensity agricultural fields and other upland grasslands during their non-breeding season.

Filling in the gaps: Managing endangered species on the high seas
- Information about how marine animals move through the oceans has become vitally important as efforts progress to create a global plan for securing sustainable fish stocks in the high seas. Researchers are integrating new technologies and applying new approaches to data sets to find answers.
- A recent examination of the long-term Tagging of Pelagic Predators (TOPP) data set has mapped the travel patterns of marine predators — certain whale, turtle, tuna, shark, and seabird species — through their life cycles.
- The study showed that many of these predators spend over half their time on the high seas, supporting the need for global strategies to protect and monitor the high seas. Vessel identification systems paired with several emerging satellite technologies can help.

Stay or go? Understanding a partial seasonal elephant migration
- Elephants in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park wearing GPS tracking tags shared a general dry-season home range but followed three different wet-season migration strategies: residency, short-distance migration, and long-distance migration.
- Despite similar dry-season conditions that kept all the tagged elephants near provisioned waterholes, the migrating elephants began their seasonal movements at the onset of the first rains.
- Scientists urge collaboration among stakeholders and countries to maintain the long-distance, cross-border migrations some animals need to survive.

Tiny tags and a broad research network help track small animal movements
- Despite great advances in radio-telemetry technology, tracking small animals still presents challenges due to the weight of tracking equipment.
- The Motus Wildlife Tracking System uses nano-tags as light as 0.2 grams to track even small birds and insects.
- Based on a collaborative deployment of automated telemetry receivers, Motus can track animals over a broad geographical region to help answer fundamental questions about animal movements, leading to insights that can help protect migratory species as they traverse the landscape.

Tagging and tracking the Tour de Turtles
- The Sea Turtle Conservancy’s Tour de Turtles kicked off last month, tagging and tracking 17 sea turtles during a marathon migration.
- Turtles wear small transmitters during the annual event as they travel thousands of miles to from their nesting beaches to feeding grounds.
- Data collected from satellite telemetry help scientists gain a clearer understanding of how four species of turtles behave at sea, furthering efforts to protect endangered species.

Tracking elephant movements reveals transboundary wildlife corridors
- Data from satellite tracking tags on 120 elephants in southern Africa have identified a suite of wildlife movement corridors across five southern African countries, suggesting the importance of cross-border coordination.
- Wide-ranging movements of elephants include dispersal from northern Botswana north into Angola and south toward the Kalahari Desert.
- Research findings have suggested that open and unimpeded movement corridors can help reduce conflict with human residents while blocked corridors can push elephants and other wildlife into new developments or villages, resulting in increased conflict.

An anti-poaching technology for elephants that is always listening
- Summer 2018 marked the successful completion of the first of three test phases for a new anti-poaching technology elephants can wear on a tracking collar.
- Called WIPER by its development team, the device integrates with wildlife tracking collars and listens for the shockwave, or sonic boom, of a high-powered rifle, a common weapon in the industrial killing of elephants and other megafauna.
- WIPER’s design overcomes two key challenges for high-tech wildlife monitoring: power source (by creating a sleep mode) and cost (by putting designs in the public domain).
- WIPER provides real-time alerts and location data when a rifle is fired within 50 meters (50 yards) of the collared animal. WIPER may not protect the animal wearing it, but it helps security personnel close in on poachers, which may deter future poaching.

Monitoring the ambitious land restoration commitments in Africa
- Announcements by Burkina Faso and Tanzania at the GLF Africa Conference, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya this week, brings restoration commitments under AFR100 to a total of 96.4 million hectares by 27 African countries.
- Making pledges is one thing, however, while monitoring and tracking progress in actually achieving these restoration goals is another. Attendees of the GLF Africa Conference were keenly aware of this challenge, and a variety of tools for monitoring and tracking restoration activities was a topic of much discussion.
- Restoration requires more than the planting of trees, as Charles Karangwa, an IUCN Regional Forest Landscape Restoration Coordinator, noted at the conference: “Countries must enact polices, allocate budget to restoration implementation, track and learn from their progress.”

Tracking tools identify regional hubs of whale shark activity
- Researchers tracked 17 juvenile whale sharks tagged at three sites in the Philippines to understand how their movements related to food sources and fishing grounds in Southeast Asia.
- They found that juvenile sharks moved quickly and widely through the Bohol and Sulu seas but remained near their feeding sites within Philippine waters.
- In combination with other studies, these findings suggest that locally focused whale shark conservation efforts are critical and must consider the movements juvenile whale sharks make within zones of several hundred square kilometers.

A ‘perfect policy storm’ cuts puma numbers by almost half near Jackson, Wyoming
- A 14-year study following 134 tagged mountain lions north of Jackson, Wyoming, found a 48 percent reduction in their numbers.
- The researchers found that the combination of the reintroduction of wolves and increases in elk and mountain lion hunting led to the precipitous drop.
- Lead study author and Panthera biologist Mark Elbroch recommends suspending puma hunting for three years in the region to allow the population to recover.

New tagging tech for great white shark tracking in New York waters
- Mongabay editor Erik Hoffner joined a research team studying juvenile great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) just offshore of Long Island, New York, an area that has been identified as a great white ‘nursery.’
- Some of the technology being deployed via tags on sharks for this study will return unprecedented information on the species.
- Here we present a series of images from the program and of this particular shark’s capture and release.

Fishing gear poses the greatest danger to young great whites off the West Coast of the U.S.
- Fishing lines and nets pose the most significant threat to the survival of young white sharks in the waters off Mexico and southern California, according to a new study.
- A team of scientists used a relatively “untapped” but ubiquitous storehouse of data to develop a statistical model for the survival rates of juvenile white sharks.
- The researchers calculated that 63 percent of young white sharks living in this part of the Pacific survive annually, but that nearly half probably come in contact with gillnets set by commercial fishers.
- The findings point to best practices, such as barring gillnets from inshore “nurseries” and asking fishers to check their nets for trapped sharks more regularly, that could help protect great whites.

Longest recorded whale shark migration eclipses 20,000 kilometers
- Scientists followed the movements of a whale shark for nearly two and a half years as she swam more than 20,000 kilometers (over 12,000 miles) from the coast of Central America to the Marianas Trench near Asia.
- Whale sharks, whose numbers have dropped by more than half in the past 75 years according to the IUCN, are taken by fishing boats for their fins, cartilage, meat and teeth, and studies have shown that boats bringing tourists to swim with the largest fish in the ocean change the species’ behavior.
- Given these threats, scientists hope studies such as this one will help guide conservation policy aimed at protecting these animals throughout their migrations.

From rescue to research: training detection dogs for conservation
- Conservation and research teams have used detection dogs to locate illegal wildlife products, weapons, invasive species, and, particularly, wildlife scat–a non-invasive way to collect dietary, hormonal, and genetic information contained in fecal material.
- Training detection dogs builds on their obsessive drive to play by associating a target substance with the play reward.
- Handlers are instrumental in interpreting a dog’s behavior and ensuring it searches efficiently and effectively for its targets.
- Detection dogs are a cost-effective way to collect wildlife data, though the costs of international transport may limit their use by smaller conservation groups.

USAID Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge awards Acceleration Prizes for rapid tech developments
- The Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge announced three winners of a $100,000 Acceleration Prize for rapid progress in developing a wildlife crime solution system.
- The winning devices were: an artificial sea turtle egg to track illegal movements of eggs and identify transit routes; a genetic reference map of pangolin poaching hotspots; and a camera-ground sensor system to monitor and communicate illegal human activity in remote reserves.
- The poaching, trafficking, and consumption of meat, scales, tusks, skin, fur, feathers, and horns of many hundreds of species has depleted populations worldwide and caused local extinctions.

Madagascar’s radiated tortoises have personalities, too
- Endemic to Madagascar, radiated tortoises are Critically Endangered due largely to poaching for the illegal pet trade
- Looking at how corticosterone changes in a tortoise, scientists uncover two distinct personality types in the radiated tortoise
- Biologists argue that individual animals consistently react to different circumstances based on their personality

Animated animals: can games engage an audience with a conservation message?
- Video games that incorporate new data visualization technologies offer an alternative channel to communicate the ecology and the plight of wildlife to an otherwise untapped audience.
- An online game called Safari Central will combine real tracking data from animals in the wild with augmented reality, creating virtual avatars of these namesakes.
- Though still unproven, games also offer an unconventional business model to support wildlife conservation programs through small in-game purchases by a potentially huge audience.

Creating corridors: researchers use GPS telemetry data to map elephants’ movements
- Elephant corridors in the Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem are threatened by human development, which has fragmented habitat and intensified human-elephant conflict.
- With GPS telemetry data from three bull elephants, researchers mapped the elephants’ habitat use and connectivity from 2006-2008 and compared it to data from 1960 using new analysis techniques.
- The expansion of agriculture and villages decreased corridor connectivity and disrupted elephants’ movements, according to results of a circuit theory model.

Location, location, location goes high-tech: Facts and FAQs about satellite-based wildlife tracking
- Satellite-based tracking tags, including ARGOS and GPS systems, collect and communicate animal locations and in some cases, acceleration and physiological data—straight to your computer, 24/7.
- ARGOS satellites use their relative position and the Doppler shift to estimate a tag’s location, which they relay back to Earth. GPS tags receive position information from multiple satellites and either store it or resend it via another communications network.
- Satellite-based tags weigh more, cost more, and demand more power than VHF radio tags. Nevertheless, they provide automated collection of thousands of point locations of an animal, which helps researchers to more precisely define home ranges, migration routes, and the relationships of these patterns to landscape features.

Location, location, location: Facts and FAQs about radio telemetry
- In this second of the Mongabay-Wildtech series on “What is that technology?” we examine radio telemetry, in the form of electronic tags used to monitor animals as they move about their daily lives to better understand how far they travel, what environments they use, and how to keep them safe.
- Radio-based tags and satellite-based tags, which include GPS tags, all communicate via radio signals but differ in how the signals communicate, the information they provide, and the energy needed to produce them.
- UHF and VHF radio tags–described in this post–are cheap, small, light, and long-lasting, but require human presence to receive the signals and locate the animal.
- Scientists can compile these point locations to map species’ local distributions, identify home ranges and migration patterns, and compare these with locations of water, food species, or human activity.

Howler monkeys booming in Belize sanctuary 25 years after translocation
- Disease, hurricanes and hunting wiped out the native howler monkeys living in the Cockscomb Basin by the 1970s.
- Between 1992 and 1994, 62 black howler monkeys (Alouatta pigra) were relocated from a nearby reserve.
- After surveying the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in March and April, scientists figure there are at least 170 howler monkeys – and perhaps many more – living all over the 51,800-hectare (128,000-acre) preserve.

Swallowing swimming pools: New sensory tags capture kinetics of lunge-feeding whales
- Researchers have developed and deployed sensory tags with video cameras to study how rorquals, a type of baleen whale, lunge feed and maximize their consumption despite the huge energetic cost.
- Comprehending the dynamics of lunge feeding and its energy tradeoffs could inform whale conservation and fisheries management.
- The scientists hope to develop the tags with a more compact design, more reliable sensors, and longer battery life, and they want to better understand the baleen and compare and analyze lunge feeding and its energetics across whales.

Beyond data collection — the social and political effects of environmental sensor proliferation
- Sensors are increasingly collecting data everywhere, changing how we relate to and manage the environment.
- These data answer researchers’ scientific questions but can also generate social, cultural and political effects, reinforcing the need for more data.
- In a new book, “Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet,” Dr. Jennifer Gabrys suggests that the future of environmental management is a question of how and whether to “program” the Earth.

Powering aquatic research with self-charging tags
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers have developed the first self-charging tracking tag, an implanted acoustic transmitter that harnesses energy from the swimming animal bearing it, for studying fish behavior throughout the organisms’ lives.
- The scientists hope the tag will help us better understand long-lived and migratory species of concern, as well as comprehend and mitigate the ramifications of dams and marine energy on fish movement and survival.
- The team will field-test the tag on white sturgeon in the Columbia and Snake rivers next year.

Understanding the ghost of the mountain
- Researchers are learning more about the biology, ethology and conservation status of elusive snow leopards, thanks to advances in satellite telemetry, camera traps, fecal genetics and GIS.
- New, albeit disputed, estimates suggest the snow leopard population is greater than previously thought, but the species is under accelerating threat from poaching, overhunting of prey, retaliatory killing by herders, mining, roads and climate change.
- The protection of the snow leopard, its prey and its highland habitat must remain global priorities to ensure this big cat’s long-term conservation.

Light, long-lasting and low-cost: the technology needs of field conservationists and wildlife researchers
- The concurrent challenges of remoteness, extreme temperatures, dust, high rainfall and humidity, dense vegetation and steep terrain all complicate and limit the use of existing and emerging technologies for nature conservation and research.
- Survey responses of front-line conservationists suggest that no single technology will stop either wildlife poaching or human-wildlife conflict.
- Researchers everywhere desire smaller, lighter, longer-lasting, and more affordable devices that better withstand humidity, dust and damage.
- Integrated, automated devices and systems for detecting, monitoring, and providing early warning of movements of people and animals would revolutionize conservation and research work across species, ecosystems, and countries.

The week in environmental news – April 22, 2016
- A new approach to mosquito control involving the release of 3 million genetically modified mosquitoes has not been well received.
- Representatives from over 170 countries gathered at the UN headquarters in New York this week to sign the Paris climate agreement.
- Thousands of fish, including rare species that live far off the shore are washing up on beaches along the central coast of Vietnam.

Participatory Mapping in the Mobile Age
- The Kogi people have a unique spiritual and ecological connection with the forests they live in, but the forest is now under threat from gold mining, agriculture, and human development.
- The Amazon Conservation Team is piloting an open-source phone app (ODK) to help the Kogi gather data and create geo-referenced maps of their land
- ACT and the Kogi plan to use the detailed digital maps to protect sacred and ecologically important sites from deforestation, and reclaim traditional land holdings.

A sex change phenomenon in fish suggests there is something in the water
- A new study published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety finds that male fish are turning into females – a phenomenon known as intersex – due to chemical pollution, specifically estrogenic endocrine disrupting chemicals or EEDCs.
- Researchers have found evidence of intersex in 85 percent of smallmouth bass and 27 percent of largemouth bass tested on 19 National Wildlife Refuges from Maine to Virginia.
- The varied and numerous sources of EEDCs make them difficult to track. Single-point sources, such as large buildings with obvious effluent pipes like waste water treatment plants and paper pulp mills, are of major concern.

Can new technologies help solve the mysteries of migration?
- ICARUS tags and satellite will track animal movements and migrations from the International Space Station, which travels at a lower (closer) orbit than satellites and enables transmissions/communication from lower-energy tags.
- ICARUS tags will be roughly 5 grams—small enough to tag animals weighing 100 grams—with plans to develop even smaller tags to study insects in the future.
- Project testing begins this year; the system will launch in 2017 and will open to the scientific community in 2018.

Studying Cecil: development and deployment of lion-tracking technology
- WildTech discusses wildlife tracking technology with Professor David Macdonald, director of a long-term study of lions, including Cecil the Lion, and co-founder of the Hwange Lion Project.
- The evolution of behavioral ecology has closely tracked advances in technology in often unexpected ways — and continues to do so.
- Combining old and new technologies can make for effective conservation strategies.

Scientists try hair traps to track tropical carnivores
- Since 1990, the use of hair traps has been rapidly expanding in wildlife biology, but mainly in cooler climates.
- By collecting hair samples, scientists can non-invasively collect DNA samples of wild animal populations to learn about genetic diversity and determine their habitat ranges.
- Three past studies successfully used hair traps in the tropics. Two monitored several species of carnivores in Mexico, and one, as yet unpublished, monitored dingoes in Australia.

Tags that protect, as well as track, endangered carnivores
- Modular tracking collars may make updates to tracking electronics more affordable.
- Researchers working with tech designers should define their needs specifically to ensure new devices meet your mission and criteria.
- Consistent communication with local ranchers is paramount when addressing human-wildlife conflict.

Applying open-source tracking technology to hunting research in Brazil
- Doctoral student Mark Abrahams tracks movements of hunting dogs, even under the canopy, using Mataki, a low-cost, open-source animal monitoring platform
- Durable enough for the rainforest, several modifications to the compact, reprogrammable system, could better detect potential battery problems and device failure in the field
- Users must build and program their own Mataki devices, using freely available schematics

Scientists launch global shark and ray census
- Scientists estimate that each year, up to 73 million sharks have their fins sliced off to make shark fin soup — a Chinese delicacy.
- A growing appetite for shark fins and meat is considered the leading cause of sharply declining shark populations.
- An international initiative that will assess the health of populations of sharks and rays in 400 different locations over a period of three years has been launched.

The wild side of Peru gets an imaging makeover
- An exclusive Mongabay interview with University of Washington researcher Samantha Zwicker.
- Zwicker’s game camera research is documenting the responses of Peruvian cats and other mammals to road network expansion, selective timber logging, and the clearing of forests for cacao plantations.
- Such baseline research can offer important data to better understand wildlife dispersal and gene flow throughout the region, and for delineating future protected areas and wildlife corridors, along with other conservation goals.

Sunrise to sunset: documenting warbler migrations with cheap, light geolocator tags
- Geolocator tags have become small enough to be used on tiny birds, such as the prothonotary warbler.
- Researchers now know far more about warbler migration routes, which will facilitate conservation plans for this species.
- An initial warbler study showed that the small birds winter in northern Colombia, where their preferred habitat is currently under threat from human activity.

Scientists turn to DNA from Sumatran elephant dung to aid conservation
- With only roughly 2,800 individuals, the Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) is critically endangered.
- Population data for Sumatran elephants has been notoriously difficult to gather due to the rarity of sightings and the small size and isolation of the areas in which the elephants live, complicating conservation efforts.
- A new study based on an unusual technique of analyzing DNA in elephant dung provides an assessment of the largest known elephant population in central Sumatra, Indonesia.

Identifying and counting the wild orangutans of Borneo
- In a recent study, game camera traps were used to identify and estimate the numbers of orangutans in the Wehea Forest of East Kalimantan, Borneo.
- Prior to the study, the most reliable method for estimating orangutan population numbers was to count the number of orangutan nests in a certain area.
- Given the current dire conservation situation for orangutans, the study team believes that camera trapping is an important step toward obtaining a more accurate understanding of the number of orangutans that still exist.

Animal action: new sensor tag tech could link animal behavior and conservation science
- Sensor tags are helping quantify how animals interact with humans and their environment.
- The technology faces limitations of cost and scale, ethical decisions, and the challenges of big data analysis.
- In the future, sensor tags could inform conservation science and offer a diffuse, animal-mounted view of a changing world.

Rare spotted leopards sighted on Malaysian Peninsula
- Previous research determined that only melanistic black leopards likely lived in the forested regions of Southeast Asia.
- The discovery of two spotted leopards may have shed some doubt on the previous hypothesis that the forested regions of Southeast Asia was the only place in the world where an entire population of animals is almost completely composed of the melanistic form.
- This new discovery points to the need for the conservation of the Ulu Muda Forest where these regionally rare spotted leopards were found, especially in light of the area’s escalating environmental pressures.

Advanced Animal Tracker Helps To Explain Big Cat’s Hunting Strategy
- Real-time monitoring and instantaneous energetics are giving scientists access to large amounts of in-situ data on big cats
- SMART collar is calibrated to understand how much energy is expended by a puma during all daily activities based on accelerometer data.
- Pumas spend large amounts of energy on cryptic behaviors (e.g. searching for prey) and spend 2.3 times more energy hunting overall than was previously predicted by ex-situ models.

Build Your Own RFID
- Animal tracking tags are often costly and heavy, precluding their use with small-bodied species.
- RFID readers record presence of animals bearing tags with unique ID numbers, so are useful for nesting or denning animals or others returning to known locations.
- Researchers have developed a low-cost, do-it-yourself passive RFID tag that can help monitor movements of small animals among fixed reader stations.

Video: the conservation drone revolution
The use of small autonomous flying vehicles — model airplanes to hobbyists — is revolutionizing the field of conservation, enabling researchers to track wildlife, monitor for poachers, and survey inaccessible forests and reefs. Lian Pin Koh, the founder of Conservation Drones, a group which is accelerating innovation in the space, highlighted the many exciting applications […]
Using drones to monitor wildlife in India
- Drones have been getting a bad rap lately and for good reason.
- However in the state of Assam, these commonly used weapons of warfare are being used to monitor the rhinoceros population.
- The Kaziranga National Park in Assam has deployed aerial drones to monitor poaching activity within the park’s boundaries to protect the endangered one-horned rhino population.

Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia