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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/internet-of-animals-satellites-in-goats-we-trust/>
"When Mount Etna in Sicily rumbled this spring, news outlets around the world
flashed dramatic photos of lava and ash. But Martin Wikelski was skeptical. The
biologist, who directs the Department of Migration at the Max Planck Institute
of Animal Behavior in Germany, checked in with his most trusted forecasters:
Twelve goats grazing on Etna’s slopes.
These goats have worn his lightweight tracking tags for more than a decade.
Before each of the last seven major eruptions, they’d alerted the scientists
with unusually frantic behavior. This time, they were calm. Further research
showed that the widely reported eruption had looked visually striking but was
actually minor and caused no damage.
“The goats were right,” Wikelski says from his office near Konstanz, Germany.
“Therefore we still say, ‘in goats we trust.’”
Wikelski is the innovator behind a global vision, decades in the making, that
could change animal research and conservation forever: ICARUS (the
International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) equips creatures
from bats and birds to goats and giraffes with lightweight smart tags that beam
data to satellites and CubeSats — smaller satellites the size of a shoe box —
revealing real-time insights into animals’ rhythms.
Most scientists studying migration patterns or endangered animals only have the
means to do research in a defined area. But often, the most illuminating
answers are global. What if animal data from around the world could be linked
to answer pertinent questions about the spread of bird flu, say, or to predict
disasters?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
