NewsWhore
03-21-2012, 01:00 PM
A portable radar system combined with night vision goggles and thermal-imaging cameras is helping scientists find and protect a rare bird in the Caribbean, a conservation group explained on Monday, 19 March.
The tools are helping researchers pinpoint nesting grounds of the Black-capped petrel in the Dominican Republic, on the south slope of the Loma del Toro.
"These birds spend almost all of their time at sea and then they nest in cliff tops far into densely wooded areas," Jessica Hardesty Norris, the seabird program director for the American Bird Conservancy, said.
Locating the nests is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, the researchers said. The process is complicated by the fact that the birds don't make verbal noise as they fly, and that they fly at night.
But if they can find the nests, they can begin to figure out what's hindering Black-capped petrel breeding success and devise strategies to protect them.
The radar system is mounted on a truck and able to pick up individual birds as they fly in from the sea and head towards their breeding grounds.
This January, the scientists parked their pickup truck on the coast and caught birds as they came in from the ocean. They then moved further inland, and caught them circling above nesting grounds.
While night vision goggles and thermal imaging are fairly common tools to find nocturnal birds, "the radar really changes the game," Norris said.
Now that team has tested out the tools on known nesting regions for the rare birds, they plan to start looking for birds in other regions, hopefully establishing a wider range and pinpointing nests for further study.
www.futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/radar-game-changer-saving-endangered-birds-486014 (http://www.futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/radar-game-changer-saving-endangered-birds-486014)
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#13)
The tools are helping researchers pinpoint nesting grounds of the Black-capped petrel in the Dominican Republic, on the south slope of the Loma del Toro.
"These birds spend almost all of their time at sea and then they nest in cliff tops far into densely wooded areas," Jessica Hardesty Norris, the seabird program director for the American Bird Conservancy, said.
Locating the nests is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, the researchers said. The process is complicated by the fact that the birds don't make verbal noise as they fly, and that they fly at night.
But if they can find the nests, they can begin to figure out what's hindering Black-capped petrel breeding success and devise strategies to protect them.
The radar system is mounted on a truck and able to pick up individual birds as they fly in from the sea and head towards their breeding grounds.
This January, the scientists parked their pickup truck on the coast and caught birds as they came in from the ocean. They then moved further inland, and caught them circling above nesting grounds.
While night vision goggles and thermal imaging are fairly common tools to find nocturnal birds, "the radar really changes the game," Norris said.
Now that team has tested out the tools on known nesting regions for the rare birds, they plan to start looking for birds in other regions, hopefully establishing a wider range and pinpointing nests for further study.
www.futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/radar-game-changer-saving-endangered-birds-486014 (http://www.futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/radar-game-changer-saving-endangered-birds-486014)
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#13)