This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: For six decades, wildlife researchers have faced a persistent challenge: to attach a tracking device to study a wild animal, they first have to catch it. Now, a new approach developed at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) allows GPS collars to be deployed autonomously on free-roaming terrestrial wildlife.
Published in BioScience, the proof-of-concept study demonstrates Capture-Free Telemetry (CFT), a technique that places tracking devices on wild animals as they interact with baited deployment units in their natural habitat. Traditional wildlife telemetry relies on physical capture. This is invasive, difficult and expensive.
Capturing and restraining wild animals can also cause severe stress. It carries risks of injury or death for animals, and sometimes even people. Because capture is often the riskiest and most challenging component of wildlife telemetry projects, traditional tracking studies often monitor only a handful of animals at a time.
In addition, study design compromises are often made to stretch collar battery life as much as possible. "By allowing animals to fit themselves with tracking devices, we may improve animal welfare while also removing a potentially important source of bias in wildlife research," says professor Richard Bischof of NMBU, inventor of the capture-free system and author of the study. "The point of wildlife telemetry is usually to study the natural behavior of wild animals in their environment.
But when we capture and immobilize wild animals, we inadvertently affect their behavior, physiology and fitness." The novel capture-free approach opens the door to what Bischof calls "finer-touch telemetry": collaring more animals less invasively and tracking each for a shorter period. He adds, "This can yield better coverage of the population and more detailed data, while reducing disturbance to the animals' natural behavior." Capture-Free Telemetry uses species-specific autonomous deployment setups that allow wild animals to collar themselves when interacting with baited devices in their habitat. In trials conducted in Norway, Bischof demonstrated proof-of-concept systems tailored to both ungulates (red deer, Cervus elaphus) and carnivores (red foxes, Vulpes vulpes).
The field trials involving deer were conducted at the Norwegian Deer Centre (Norsk hjortesenter), a national competence center for deer and other wild ungulates in Norway. To safeguard animal welfare, safety features are built directly into the design. The collars automatically adjust to the animal's neck size.
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