Subtitle: Wildlife ecologist Bruce McLellan lived in the remote Flathead Valley in Canada and followed some bears for upwards of 30 years. The radio collaring and tracking techniques (literally...
Subtitle: Wildlife ecologist Bruce McLellan lived in the remote Flathead Valley in Canada and followed some bears for upwards of 30 years.
The radio collaring and tracking techniques (literally holding a transceiver and antenna and listening to pings implying direction and proximity) described here are still what many researchers are doing all over the world when studying anything from smaller animals like African Painted Wolves/Painted Dogs to full-size elephants. Some have the resources to use satellite collars (which are much cheaper these days), but a lot of the hands-on stuff is still largely radio telemetry. Understanding the behaviors of these species also tells us about how these animals interact with livestock or farming land, human settlements, and how they must compete with humans for natural resources (salt, water, etc.).
This article, and the book by McLellan, get into some of that and it's really interesting to hear how this technology and research methods have evolved over almost 40 years.
Subtitle: Wildlife ecologist Bruce McLellan lived in the remote Flathead Valley in Canada and followed some bears for upwards of 30 years.
The radio collaring and tracking techniques (literally holding a transceiver and antenna and listening to pings implying direction and proximity) described here are still what many researchers are doing all over the world when studying anything from smaller animals like African Painted Wolves/Painted Dogs to full-size elephants. Some have the resources to use satellite collars (which are much cheaper these days), but a lot of the hands-on stuff is still largely radio telemetry. Understanding the behaviors of these species also tells us about how these animals interact with livestock or farming land, human settlements, and how they must compete with humans for natural resources (salt, water, etc.).
This article, and the book by McLellan, get into some of that and it's really interesting to hear how this technology and research methods have evolved over almost 40 years.