Wildlife monitoring

Birds

About 4500 birds are tracked every month with Argos. Thanks tominiaturized transmitters which are becoming lighter and lighter (some weigh less than 5 grams), and to the sensitivity of receivers on satellites, which can record very low-powered transmissions (150 mW), it has now become possible to track and locate new species, whose migratory behavior has not yet been determined. Photo by B.-U. Meyburg.

Marine Animals

There is a vast range of pelagic species below the surface of the seas and oceans. Some strike us as fearsome, others as fascinating, others again we know little about, and some we fish, often intensively. In spite of the apparent difficulty of observing these animals, extremely robust and reliable Argos transmitters can record for many months the depth and temperature of the water through which they move and transmit this information to specialists on land who can then either directly track or reconstruct an animal’s trajectory.

Symbolically important and enigmatic animals, marine turtles fascinate both the scientists investigating them and the general public. Between 800 and 1000 marine turtles migrating across the oceans are tracked via the ARGOS satellite system in order to determine their trajectories and identify their geographical distribution; the data are then correlated with other sources to analyze their behavior at sea or on land. The overriding aim is to better protect local or regional turtle populations that may be in danger of extinction.

Credit photo : Ifremer