Damon Mcknight
Tracking animals in Australia is a fascinating endeavour that provides insights into the country's diverse wildlife. From the nervous scurrying of Spinifex Mice to the distinctive hop marks of kangaroos, each animal track tells a unique story of survival and adaptation. With the right tools and knowledge, anyone can become a nature detective, identifying patterns and transforming an ordinary walk into an exciting journey of wildlife discovery. Various methods are employed to track animals, including electronic telemetry devices, satellite systems, smartphone apps, and good old-fashioned footprint identification. This paragraph aims to introduce the topic of animal tracking in Australia, shedding light on the techniques, challenges, and rewards of exploring the country's rich fauna.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Tracking technology | Electronic telemetry devices, satellite tracking systems, smartphone apps, lightweight tags, and computational methods |
| Tracking tools and websites | Movebank, Google Earth Engine, ICARUS, ARGOS, Animal Tracker, Cornell Lab Merlin, PlantNet, Seek by iNaturalist |
| Trackable animals | Birds, mammals, marine animals, kangaroos, emus, spinifex mice, dogs, cats, horses, reptiles, ferrets |
| Purpose | Research, conservation, wildlife observation, education, planning protection strategies, reuniting lost pets with owners |
| Data | Location, environmental interactions, human activity, migration patterns |
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What You'll Learn
Using technology like ICARUS tags, Google Earth Engine, and telemetry devices
Tracking animal movement is crucial for understanding how individuals and populations move within local areas, migrate across oceans and continents, and evolve across generations. This knowledge can help address environmental challenges such as climate change, land use change, biodiversity loss, invasive species, wildlife trafficking, and disease spread.
ICARUS Tags
The ICARUS Initiative (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) is an international project that aims to track the migratory patterns of small flying animals using radio transmitters. The project, which began in 2002, involves attaching small, solar-powered radio transmitters to animals, which activate when a satellite passes over them. These tags, weighing around 5 grams, include a GPS receiver, and future versions are expected to weigh less than 1 gram. This technology has been used to study the movements of birds and insects, and their interactions with natural hazards and human activities.
Google Earth Engine
Google Earth Engine is a powerful tool that has been used in several conservation projects. For example, Dr. Anup Joshi used it to assess changes in wild tiger habitats across 13 countries, finding that doubling the wild tiger population by 2022 is achievable with effective forest protection. Google Earth Engine has also been used to visualize elephant tracking data from across Africa, helping organizations like Save the Elephants monitor and protect these animals from poachers. Additionally, Google Earth Engine's collaboration with the Map of Life team has allowed for refined predictions of at-risk species locations.
Telemetry Devices
Animal telemetry is a scientific method for gathering information on the movement and behavior of animals, especially marine organisms, using animal-borne sensors or tags. These tags can record and transmit data on an animal's movements, biorhythms, and environmental factors like water temperature and salinity. Telemetry data has been used to understand marine life better and inform conservation policies. For example, the U.S. Animal Telemetry Network has facilitated access to and integration of telemetry data from various species and platforms, aiding in the study of ecosystem changes.
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Analysing animal footprints and other marks
Animal tracks can reveal a lot of information about the creature that made them, from the species to its behaviour, movements, and even their size. Analysing animal footprints and identifying patterns is a valuable skill that can help us understand the wildlife in an area and uncover the hidden stories of the natural world around us. Here are some tips for analysing animal footprints and other marks:
Look for Distinctive Features
Each animal leaves unique footprints that can be identified by their distinctive features. For example, kangaroos have large hind feet and their tracks are relatively easy to identify, especially when they are hopping at speed, as the tracks are widely spaced apart. Emus, on the other hand, have three-toed feet with sharp claws, and their tracks are elongated and narrow, often appearing in a straight line due to their direct walking style.
Observe the Spacing and Pattern
The spacing and pattern of footprints can provide clues about the animal's movement and speed. For instance, when kangaroos move slowly, their tracks will be closer together, showing the front and back footprints. Emu tracks, unlike those of many other animals, do not overlap, so you will often find a series of single tracks in a linear pattern.
Consider the Environment
The environment in which the footprints are found can also offer valuable insights. For example, in Australia's desert regions, animal tracks in the sand can reveal stories of survival and the nocturnal adventures of creatures that thrive in arid conditions, such as spinifex mice and emus.
Study the Context
Footprints can provide context about the animal's behaviour and activities. For instance, observing the tracks of a male emu leading his chicks on a foraging expedition highlights the role of the male in rearing the young. Additionally, the presence of abundant rabbit tracks in arid environments raises questions about how these animals survive without surface water.
Understand the Limitations
It is important to recognise that footprint analysis has its limitations. Factors such as the age of the tracks, the condition of the surface, and the presence of disturbances can impact the accuracy of your interpretations. Freshly made tracks in the early morning, when the light is low, may be easier to decipher.
By following these guidelines and developing your skills in footprint analysis, you can become a nature detective, unlocking the fascinating stories that Australian animals leave behind in their tracks.
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Using apps like Animal Tracker, Seek, and Merlin
Animal Tracker, Seek, and Merlin are apps that can be used to track animals in Australia. Animal Tracker allows users to follow the movements of wild animals worldwide in near-real-time. The animals are tracked using tiny GPS tags, and the data is stored on Movebank, a free online infrastructure used by researchers to manage, share, analyse, and archive animal movement data. Users can participate in scientific research projects by uploading their observations and photos of tagged animals to the app.
Seek appears to be unrelated to animal tracking, as it is primarily a job search app for users in Australia and New Zealand.
Merlin is a free app developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that helps identify birds. While Merlin Bird ID is currently only available for North America, the eBird Australia team is working to expand the app to Australia. To prepare Merlin for Australia, the app needs a comprehensive collection of photos of Australian birds, and users can contribute by uploading their bird photos to eBird checklists. In addition to providing photos, users can also help Merlin recognise where in a photo the bird is located, as this is a crucial step in helping the app learn to identify Australian bird species.
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Registering lost pets with the Australasian Animal Registry (AAR)
The Australasian Animal Registry (AAR) is a service dedicated to supporting and protecting lost pets and reuniting them with their owners. Operating since 1989, the AAR is a core pillar of the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW (RAS) and is accredited by the Queensland Government, Australian Veterinary Association (AVA), Victorian Government, Department of Primary Industry (DPI), and the Bureau of Animal Welfare.
The AAR maintains records for over 4 million animals, including dogs, cats, birds, horses, reptiles, and ferrets. The database is only accessible to authorised users, including councils and veterinary clinics, for recovery purposes.
If you are the listed owner of a pet on HomeSafe ID's database, you can register your pet with the AAR by completing the New Registration Form and emailing it to [email protected]. If you reside in Victoria, you must attach a copy of your HomeSafeID registration certificate. Registered owners can update most details online, except for the owner's name and breed of the animal. To change these details, you must email or call the AAR during business hours.
Additionally, the AAR offers a Pet Address search engine that allows users to search for a pet's microchip number across various animal databases. It is important to note that, due to government regulations, new registrations from Victoria cannot be completed online and must be submitted via a downloaded registration form.
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Using websites like Movebank to access animal movement data
Movebank is a system designed to study global animal movement and demography. It is used by researchers, government agencies, and conservation organizations to manage research and conservation projects and to meet legislative requirements. Movebank offers tools for real-time monitoring of animals and represents a digital museum of animal movement and behaviour. The system can be used to acquire, manage, and analyse animal tracking data, with location information from animal-borne tags being acquired through live streams or imported by researchers. The data is stored in a PostgreSQL database, with all components of Movebank centred around this database, which harmonizes the data to a shared data model and vocabulary.
Movebank is designed to work with data from any animal-borne sensor that includes a timestamp and relocations or other sensor measurements representing individual animals. This includes GPS data, movements recorded using Argos, VHF and acoustic telemetry, geolocation, and data collected by accelerometers, barometers, gyroscopes, and thermometers embedded into animal-borne tags. The system also offers collaboration tools that allow researchers to securely share data with others, make it publicly available, or formally archive it.
The Movebank Track Annotation Project is an initiative that aims to link animal movement data with environmental data to understand the impact of environmental change on animal migration. The project recognizes that animal behaviour is influenced by its surrounding environment and aims to capture data on animal locations and their surrounding environmental information. By combining historical and new data with collaboration tools, Movebank enables broad comparative analyses and data acquisition and mapping efforts.
In addition to Movebank, there are other tools and platforms available for tracking animals in Australia. For example, the Taronga Conservation Society Australia is developing an animal movement analysis toolbox to allow practitioners to link animal tracks with environmental and human activity datasets. This toolbox will be made broadly available to researchers, providing a new framework to address questions relating to the spatial ecology and conservation of animals in a human-dominated, variable, and changing environment.
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Frequently asked questions
There are several apps that can help track animals in Australia. Seek (by iNaturalist) is an app that can identify plants, animals, and insects and will maintain a log of what you've seen. Merlin is another app that can identify birds and PlantNet is an excellent app for identifying plants.
There are several other ways to track animals apart from apps. One way is to use electronic telemetry devices to gain insight into where they go and how they interact with their environment. ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) is a worldwide system that uses small, lightweight tags to track animals and send information to the International Space Station (ISS). ARGOS is another satellite tracking system that provides location data for birds, mammals, and marine animals.
The Australasian Animal Registry (AAR) maintains records for over 4 million animals and can help reunite lost pets with their owners. The database is accessible only to authorized users, including councils and veterinary clinics, for recovery purposes.
