On November 9, 2019, a sub-adult loggerhead was stranded on Long Island due to cold stunning, a phenomenon like hypothermia. In addition to being cold-stunned, the animal also was entangled in a monofilament fishing line and had evidence of some sort of vessel interaction. The animal...
To determine battery health for tags programmed in Tag Agent, you must look deeper than the tag voltage. This only shows you tag voltage when there is no stress on the battery. The voltage you want to check is when the tag is transmitting as this...
Project Kingfish recently had its first successful Sydney satellite tag deployment. How does their program work? First, a kingfish is caught. Then the satellite tag is secured into the muscle of the kingfish, anchoring the dart between the pterygiophores (fin bones) much like an NSW...
Scientists want to understand how human activities can change the behavior and physiology of animals. Military sonar on marine mammals is especially concerning. Researchers looked at data from blue whales, including fine-scale telemetry measurements of their baseline behavior over multiple days and weeks between 2014-2019....
The Marine Mammal Center often fits its patients with tracking devices before they are released, such as the satellite tag you see here on California sea lion Sundance. Along with insights gained during rehabilitation, tracking these patients post-release allows the center to understand how our...
In October 2018, satellite and acoustic telemetry tags were used to track the survival of six turtles during Hurricane Michael. Researchers used Wildlife Computers SPOT and SPLASH tags on three turtles, and the other three carried acoustic tags. The long-term effects of Hurricane Michael on...
Researchers tested machine learning algorithms and compared them to predict the potential distribution of sperm whales during the wet and dry seasons. Fieldwork was conducted in the south-western part of Mauritius Island in 2014, 2016, and 2018. 21 sperm whales were fitted with Wildlife Computers...
A 16-year study of 186 sea otters in California demonstrated the deadly health effects of long-term Domoic Acid (DA) exposure. DA is a toxin that causes neurological and cardiovascular issues. Researchers developed a novel, composite metric for DA exposure, which combined three environmental monitoring datasets...
This season’s Roosterfish Tagging Study took place in June in Costa Rica. The team successfully tagged a 41” Roosterfish around 25 lbs. which was released healthy with a satellite tag from Wildlife Computers. The tag will stay on the fish for the next two months...
When you get a call from a client saying that a tag isn’t working as expected, you send your intrepid mechanical engineer, Andy Leask, to Greenland to figure out what is going on. Field trials are critical to the research and development of new tags. Over...