If you have ever looked up at those V-shaped flocks of geese and wondered where they are flying and what they see along their journey, a newly-launched satellite will be able to precisely plot their course.
After a three-year pause due to the Russia-Ukraine war, the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) project, which aims to track wildlife from space, was re-launched on Nov. 28 aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
The system, involving researchers from around the world, uses tiny transmitters placed on animals including birds, zebras, sea turtles, and even insects, to track their interactions with each other and the environment around them.
The project was dreamed up in 2002 by Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior biologist Martin Wikelski as “The Internet of Animals.” So far, hundreds of thousands of tags have been put out on animals. Ground-based receivers take that information and relay it to researchers, who have already released hundreds of scientific studies as a result.
But having a receiver up on a satellite means they can collect data from areas that the ground-based receivers can’t reach, like the tops of mountains, deep in the jungles, or in the far North.
WATCH | What spying on animals can tell us about the natural world | The Current:
The first space-based receiver was switched on in 2020, as an experimental antenna attached to the outside of the Russian segment of the International Space Station. During trial runs, ICARUS proved to be a success by tracking the movements of hundreds of animals from 15 species worldwide, like the common cuckoo bird. But it was shut down in 2022 after the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, and the collaboration was halted immediately.
“The first data from Icarus is evidence that, with increased effort, a global network of animal sentinels is possible,” Wikelski said at the time in a news release.
Since then, efforts on the ground have improved the technology, reducing the size of the receiver down to 10 centimeters, consuming one-tenth of the energy, and making it more sensitive and able to track more animals at once. This was recently incorporated into a CubeSat, a small satellite, and on Nov. 28 was launched into space along with a multitude of other CubeSats from other countries.
Data can track environmental challenges wildlife face
The researchers have also been working to shrink down the transmitters that go on the animals themselves. After years of refinement, the latest iterations weigh only four grams, and can be attached to animals as small as songbirds. The next generation, they say, will be small enough to go on insects.
The devices transmit GPS position data but also behavioural and health information of the animals. They can record environmental conditions, such as temperature, humidity and air pressure, which means the data will not only include the movement of the animals themselves but the conditions they are facing on the ground — and crucially, how they all interact with each other.
The combined information from thousands of animals can also be used to track changing conditions in the environment such as tree growth, ocean currents or glacial melt. It’s even been used to track earthquakes in remote areas.
All this data is relayed by the satellite to Movebank, a global database for animal movements.
And the information is freely available to other researchers so that they can all see the different interactions at play.
”That’s why it’s called the Internet of Animals. We want to link all the researchers with all their animals together because the interaction of sensors is much more than summing them up,” said Wikelski in an interview on Quirks & Quarks earlier this year. “We can learn what they know about the planet and we can protect them.”
The recent launch is just the first satellite of many that the team hopes to deploy. By 2027, ICARUS plans to include six satellites providing real-time global coverage.
Such information is important because migration routes have existed for millennia, possibly longer. Meanwhile, we have been converting natural landscapes into cityscapes that can block those pathways.
For example, many migrating waterfowl, such as geese, ducks and swans, need watery resting areas, such as marshes, ponds or lakes, to spend the nights during their long journeys south. If humans “drain the swamp” to make a housing development, the birds have nowhere to land, or must fly farther to find refuge. This consumes more of their energy needed to complete the trip.
Beyond migrations, animals will also be tracked in their home ranges to see how they interact with human settlements or natural landscapes.
ICARUS scientists, however, are interested in more than just technical data from the satellite. They will also rely on citizen scientists through their animal tracker app. Bird watchers and nature observers can use their smartphones to take photographs, describe what the animals are doing, whether it be resting or eating, and send that data directly to Movebank, becoming part of the scientific investigation.
We humans regularly board aircraft that fly specific routes to take us around the world. Animals instinctively have specific corridors they fly or walk that also cover the globe. Knowing about those natural pathways can better enable us to adjust land development to keep those corridors open.
