[HN Gopher] Lightweight radio transmitters on birds, bats and in...
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Lightweight radio transmitters on birds, bats and insects
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 58 points
Date : 2024-09-17 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| birdnetflyer wrote:
| They are missing a _huge_ chance by not using ultra cheap SDRs
| like RTLSDRs.
|
| Edit: I see.. they are using RasPis. But it looks like a super
| complex setup.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| https://archived.sensorgnome.org/How_do_I_build_a_SensorGnom...
|
| This is using a Funcube Dongle, which if I recall has much
| better noise performance than the normal RTLSDR devices.
| fotta wrote:
| they do support RTL-SDR
| https://docs.motus.org/en/stations/station-equipment/antenna...
| smusamashah wrote:
| These trackers on the legs remind of the 70 year old albatross
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38662454 which has the same
| tracker.
| bbarnett wrote:
| For some reason, I immediately thought "no way that bird is 70
| years old", and reasoned that the bauble on the birds leg is
| now a status symbol.
|
| After all, all the other birds see humans staring, pointing,
| admiring the bird with it!
|
| So the bird returning for 70 years, is just whichever bird that
| managed to kill and take the bauble for its own. I envision a
| bird arena, and Spock/Kirk fight music, all of it.
|
| And here we just think it's the same bird.
| uoaei wrote:
| That's not reason, that's post-facto rationalization.
|
| The two are often conflated, to the detriment of us all.
| jonathanyc wrote:
| > In looking at roost networks of bank swallows in Ontario you
| can identify that, "Oh, some bank swallows at night are actually
| going to different roosts from where their babies are," and the
| adults will often trade off. We don't know why, but they will
| sort of wander around and travel a hundred or more kilometers to
| a different place between nights.
|
| That is actually pretty surprising to me. The weirdest insight
| from animal trackers I'd previously heard was kind of similar--
| that wolves regularly travel a lot further than scientists would
| have expected--but trading off roosts is a whole different level.
| crooked-v wrote:
| AirBnBird.
| edm0nd wrote:
| _sigh_ , this again. It's been proven multiple times that birds
| aren't real.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Been bothered for a long time that wildlife conservationists are
| so quick to tag animals with labels and trackers left and right.
| Is it really helping, or is it rather control freakery and
| actionism when the natural habitat or food chain or whatever is
| simply shrinking and there's not much that can be done about it
| save for full-on stopping obvious causes? Can not at least animal
| identities and movement be tracked or estimated with minimal-
| invasive methods or cameras more intelligently?
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Most of the time, tags don't seem to cause much problems but
| sometimes there can be some effects [1].
|
| Conservation efforts can be effective if evidence is needed in
| order to fight against further land destruction (such as
| property development), especially when migratory birds use
| small but important areas for stopovers.
|
| On the other hand, a lot of conservation research is merely
| clarifying somewhat obvious problems, but the current
| capitalistic system is very inefficient when it comes to
| dealing with these problems: in it, you must hit people over
| the head with the obvious, because people are more attached to
| money than preserving our ecosystems. If we were smart, we
| could do more with much less research.
|
| [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3802820
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| You can't solve what you can't measure.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Again, a false dichotomy. The state of many animals is
| already well known enough, and the problems they face is
| well known enough. The debate isn't whether to measure or
| not, but how _much_ measurement occurs and how it reflects
| the poor state of how conservation works -- which is not
| the fault of conservationists of course.
| sitkack wrote:
| The implicit argument you are making is that something has
| to be measurable to be worth saving. The most important
| things in the world you cant measure.
| 7952 wrote:
| It helps establish where the habitat/range of the animal
| actually is. For animals that move around a lot that can be
| difficult. For example a group of bats may fly down a
| particular corridor to get to a feeding site. You can establish
| the habitat for particular animals and improve understanding
| for the species as a whole to improve prediction.
|
| This understanding is all useful in adjusting human activity to
| reduce impact. Or at least understanding what that impact may
| be.
| justincormack wrote:
| There is some research near me using tags on bats to see if
| their cross sea migration is affected by wind farms. Cameras
| clearly wont work.
| viewtransform wrote:
| TIL bats migrate. https://www.batcon.org/flight-of-the-night/
| sliken wrote:
| How do you prove or disprove that airports mess with migration
| patterns?
|
| Wind farms?
|
| Loss of forests?
|
| Loss of wetlands?
|
| Making the world friendly to animals means providing areas
| where they can feed, reproduce, be safe, drink uncontaminated
| water, migrate safely, etc. There are costs to accommodating
| them and nobody is going to want to pay without knowing what
| positive impact will result.
| thatguy288 wrote:
| https://www.lotek.com/products/nanopin/
|
| https://www.lotek.com/products/nanotags/
|
| https://www.lotek.com/products/solar-nanotags-coded-vhf-for-...
| peppertree wrote:
| Does anyone have more in-depth technical details on these
| trackers? I assume they are UHF transmitters that require
| directional scanners?
| sliken wrote:
| A friend is in involved in the sat based version. They did manage
| incredible optimizations for power efficiency.
|
| With a clock, pressure sensor, light sensor, a low power radio
| you can, and a bit of compute you can: * Use
| sunrise/sunset to get an idea of your longitude * Use the
| length of the day get an idea of your latitude * Then use
| the above and some orbital calculations to find a 1-2 minute
| window when the sat will be visible. * Use the sat
| communications to upload a few 100 bytes and update your local
| clock, and get a better idea of your longitude.
|
| Such optimizations would allow a 1-2 gram transmitter to last for
| months to a year.
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