Methods Used and Skills Taught

The technology and associated techniques that our volunteers and interns are exposed to and learn about in this team, under the leadership and supervision of our team coordinators, include: (1) Drones, which are used to collect high-definition aerial photography and video of habitats, communities, and landscape components at our wildlife research sites, forest conservation sites, and of the lands managed by the indigenous and mestizo communities that we work with; (2) Passive Integrated Transponders (PIT), which are tags used to uniquely identify focal individuals of ecologically important species (caiman, bats, snakes, tortoises, etc.); (3). Radio telemetry techniques, using active (moving) and passive (stationary) receivers, are used to follow focal animals as they move through their territories, including real-time relays of position information, to better understand movement and activity patterns, home range size, and the location of key foraging and reproduction areas; (4) Bioacoustic techniques, using microphones (tuned to audible and ultrasound frequencies), to help identify nocturnal bat, frog, and owl species, and to determine their densities across habitats via sophisticated triangulation methods; (5) Digital camera traps and security camera video systems to monitor wildlife reproductive sites (burrows, nests, etc.) with minimal disturbance; (6) Automated climate stations that collect temperature, humidity, and rainfall information in digital formats; and (7) Digital solutions to help transition away from traditional pen and paper methods of collecting and storing basic wildlife population monitoring data. Understanding the software packages used to analyse imagery, position, animal calls, and so forth, is also an integral part of the skills taught in this team.  Click here for more details about this program.

A small Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tag being inserted in the tail region of a Smooth-fronted caiman (Paleosuchus trigonatus). 

Photo: Stijn de Jong