Very Interesting – July-August 2019

People have been tracking larger

animals by satellite for a while

now, but you have managed to

scale the technology down to be

small enough to attach to birds.

The idea of Icarus started back

in 2000 when Prof Martin

Wikelski was still an Associate

Professor at the University of

Illinois. He and his team had

the idea of developing a global

system that would track

animals from space. The

required technology was

developed much later after

the project received the

necessary support from the

German Aerospace Center

(DLR), the Max Planck

Society and the Russian

Space Agency (Roscosmos).

The development of small

animal tags weighing less

than 5g began in 2010 with a

case study and was completed

i n 2 017.

What is involved in attaching the

trackers to the birds?

The researchers need to

capture the animals and

attach the transmitters.

Various techniques are used

to do this: Wikelski has

developed a silicon harness,

for example, which he uses to

secure a transmitter to a bird.

The straps are elasticated and

fit the animal’s body snugly

even if it gains or loses

weight. The harness is also

concealed by the feathers. All

of this ensures that the

transmitter does not impact

negatively on the animals’

lives.

It usually only takes a few

minutes to attach. In some

cases, the researchers

measure the animals or take

blood, feather or hair

samples. The animals are

individually tagged (using a

bird ring, for example), so

that transmitters and birds

are identifiable. The birds are

then released into the wild

again and shortly afterwards

continue on with their natural

activities. The transmitter can

now collect and transmit data

• potentially over the entire
  lifetime of an animal:
  scientists have observed
  storks in this way for 10 years.

What are the advantages of

tracking animals via satellite?

Scientists who observe

animals using transmitters

have high telephone bills. The

reason: to date, the

transmitters have been

transmitting their

measurements as SMS

messages via the GSM mobile

radio standard. Mobile

tariffs, which also include

roaming in Africa, are

expensive but cannot be

avoided if researchers want to

track animals such as fruit

bats, storks and cuckoos.

With Icarus, data

transmission costs will be less

expensive. The new Icarus

transmitters will no longer

send measurements via the

mobile network but to a

separate receiver station on

board the International Space

Station (ISS). A data packet

is approximately 220 bytes in

size and will be transmitted

in three and a half seconds.

The data will be coded using

the so-called CDMA method.

With this technology, several

data streams can be

transmitted simultaneously in

a common frequency range.

The mini-transmitters not

only forward their sensor

data, but can also store

several gigabytes of data. To

do this, however, the

transmitter must first be

collected again.

Roughly how many animals have

you managed to tag since the

inception of the initiative?

The Icarus System was

installed in August 2018 on

the ISS. Unfortunately, we

are still waiting for the system

to be switched on by our

Russian counterparts. That’s

why so far, only a few

hundred animals, mainly

blackbirds, have been

equipped with the Icarus tags

for terrestrial testing. As soon

as the system starts running

and the three-month testing

period is over, around 1,000

animals will be fitted with

tags in the first year, followed

High-flying

innovation

GET INVOLVED

T

he Icarus researchers don’t

want to rely solely on the

transmitters, but also want to use

the observations of large numbers

of amateur animal-watchers

worldwide. This gives everyone

the opportunity to actively

participate in research projects.

The Animal Tracker app for

smartphones allows the routes of

wild animals to be followed all

over the world in real time.

Anyone watching a transmitting

animal can report their

observations and help provide a

better understanding of the

movement data. The app enables

users to save their own

observations and to upload

photos. The data is stored in the

Movebank Research Database

and directly published on Animal

Tracker – a platform used by

hundreds of researchers to

analyse, share, manage and

archive movement data.

For more information on the

Animal Tracker app, go to icarus.

mpg.de/29143/animal-tracker-

app.

Environment

The Icarus Initiative is a series of projects that uses cutting-edge technology

to track animal movements more efficiently than older systems

7 TEXT: USCHI MÜLLER