1 Tahrcountry Musings: Smart-phones and wildlife conservation

Friday, June 24, 2011

Smart-phones and wildlife conservation


Modern life styles have put a damper on wildlife conservation efforts across the world.  Conservationists have rued the use of many modern gadgets. To buck the trend here is a case where a modern invention is coming to the rescue of wildlife.
Scientists at the Zoological Society for London (ZSL) have announced the launch of a new "bat phone”, a smart phone application that ordinary people can use to track the movements of local bat species. It has has been developed for a global bat monitoring programme covering at least 16 countries. More than 900 species of bat can be tracked with the help of an ultrasonic microphone.
Smart phones, internet, online crowd sourcing and social networks are being judiciously put to use to further the cause of conservation. The citizens en masse act as field researchers collecting valuable data. The data is uploaded to a website that identifies each of the calls to build an accurate picture of bat populations. 

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