ICARUS project animal tags may deter poachers

Wildlife Vets Namibia is currently participating in the ICARUS Initiative, an animal tracking project called the 'International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space.'

The project is led by Martin Wikelsji and Uschi Müller from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour.

“Tracking animals is not a new thing, but the ICARUS Initiative is taking animal tracking to the next level.”

The goal of ICARUS is to create a living map of Earth’s animals, which means tracking animals with a network of sensors (tags on the animals) that can send real-time data to space.

"Basically, an ‘Internet of Animals’ is created that can tell researchers how ecosystems are changing in real-time and how animals respond to this.”

Better understanding

Wildlife Vets said understanding animal movement is important to understand a wide range of ecological processes, such as species’ adaptations to habitat loss.

“Where do they thrive and where not? For example, a popular belief is that bats spread Ebola; however, we do not even know where they go. With this technology, bats can be tagged and important information on disease transmission can be obtained.”

Some of the specialised tags are so small that researchers can monitor insects and butterflies.

“The tags, custom-built for each species, are extremely small and lightweight, some weighing less than five grams, and can record the animal’s GPS position and movement as well as things such as temperature and humidity, pressure, acceleration and magnetic fields.”

The battery of the tag is recharged by a little solar panel on top of the tag.

Wildlife Vets said most tags have a two-way communication system, which means they can be programmed remotely. The size of the data sent out to a satellite is extremely small and stored in a specially designed Movebank.

The Namibian project

Wildlife Vets said that in Namibia, several species, including elephants, rhinos, zebras and all kinds of antelope, have been tagged on two different farms.

The aim of the project is to check how these tiny GPS solar-powered ear tags work on different wildlife species, but also to see how animals use their habitat and how they react to disturbances, like, for example, poachers approaching.

“These tags do not transmit their data directly to satellites but to so-called SigFox towers. SigFox is a low-power wide-area network (LPWAN). It consists of a global network of base stations that has, however, a lot of reception holes outside of populated areas.”

According to Wildlife Vets, to cover these ‘black spots', additional receivers can be put up in coordination with the SigFox provider in a country.

“When an animal is not in reach of a tower, the data gets stored and sent once the animal is in reach again.”

Multiple benefits

The tags have more advantages.

Tagged animals might help to detect poachers on a farm.

“With human interference, such as poachers, animals’ movement and behaviour tend to differ from normal. Detecting these abnormal movement patterns may enable game rangers to prevent or deter poaching.”

In addition, the tags detect if an animal has not moved for a certain time ( /-30 seconds).

“The tag then sends out a mortality signal alarm to alert the farmer or anti-poaching team to check on the animal. In the case of, say, a poached rhino, this could enable the first responder to apprehend the poachers while busy taking the horns off.”

Wildlife Vets however, said that while technology is great, they should also make sure that the data does not fall into the wrong hands.

It explained that messages are encrypted, and only people with access links can view the data.

“Hopefully, the tags produced by the Max Planck Institute should be available on a larger scale within the second half of 2024 for general use at production costs.”