After decades of development, wildlife monitoring is finally entering a new era. The Icarus satellite now makes it possible to monitor, from space, invisible signals recorded in the behavior of animals, an advance, believes the BBC, which could help save endangered species such as cheetahs, rhinos or elephants.
Scenario: in the savannah, a group of poachers advance, on the hunt. Around them, the wildebeests, zebras and giraffes already sense danger, even before they see it. When the shot rings out, panic immediately spreads and all the animals run away. From the sky, a drone records these reactions in order to reveal, by analyzing the images, repeated patterns of flight and dispersion.
This is not a real hunt, the armed people are in reality scientists simulating the presence of poachers in order to study the animals’ reaction. Their objective is therefore to identify the behavioral signatures associated with a human threat, to train an algorithm capable of then alerting the guards in real time.
The Okambara site in Namibia is an ideal testing ground for this project. In this 169 square kilometer reserve, around 5% of large animals are equipped with GPS tags that continuously transmit their position. The data collected should be used to protect animal populations in much larger and much less monitored areas, such as the Congo Basin or certain national parks in southern Africa.
100,000 animals monitored by 2030
Behind this initiative is Martin Wikelski, an ornithologist and animal movement specialist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany. Its ambition is immense: to equip 100,000 animals around the world by 2030 in order to build a true “internet of animals”. He said animals can become natural sentinels, able to indicate when danger, such as a poacher, is approaching.
To do this, researchers are relying on increasingly sophisticated miniaturized technologies. The new beacons can measure not only GPS position, but also activity, body temperature, heart rate and even environmental parameters. Some are now small enough to be carried by birds or even butterflies, and operate using supercapacitors that are more durable than traditional batteries.
This miniaturization marks a break with the first tracking devices, which appeared in the 1970s. At the time, collars were bulky, imprecise and unsuitable for the majority of species. Today, sensors from the Internet of Things allow much finer monitoring, sometimes down to the centimeter scale, and can even operate when the satellite connection is temporarily unavailable.
The big challenge, however, remains the transmission of data from isolated regions. In places like Kruger, South Africa, teams already use thousands of tags to track rhinos, zebras, antelopes and elephants. This data made it possible, in certain cases, to identify injured or trapped animals, and to help rangers intervene more quickly.
It is now the space deployment of the Icarus system that could change the situation. With several satellites in orbit by 2027, researchers hope to receive real-time information on the movements of animals all over the planet. This new generation of tracking could finally answer crucial questions by precisely observing where wild animals live, migrate and die.
