Wednesday, October 31, 2012

What if Carol the mako shark was Doris the duck?

Found this really neat article in Sportfishing online. Carol is a SPOT tagged juvenile mako shark, tagged 5 months ago in NZ waters. The tag sends data which is relayed via satellites, revealing information about makos previously unknown to scientists.

Here's a really cool activity log showing Carol's travels. Have a play. Now, here we have a collaborative approach to research and even better, a nice way of sharing results with the general populace. Similar methods have been used for sika deer (telemetry on collars) showing that if there is truly a will to make things happen, then there is a way. If we were to use modern technology to monitor a sample population of mallards, then I'm pretty sure some hard data could be gathered quite fast.

It can be done.

Quick edit/addendum had a 5 minute gawk on the internet and found this local initiative in GPS bird tracking. Must be getting close to fruition now according to the Guvmint site.....

1 comment:

  1. That is awesome!

    The sika one has sponsors for various deer, I'm sure a similar approach could be utilised for a duck one ... the H&F drake, the Hammils hen etc etc etc

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