Technological innovations allow biologists to collect valuable data on wild animals. The documentary series Connected wildlife shows how developers and researchers in the field work hand in hand in order to better understand, among other things, the spread of diseases in bats, the behavior of hares or the hibernation of turtles.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
Collecting data is a crucial step in understanding the behavior of animals in their natural habitat. Since direct observation has its limits, biologists are increasingly using electronic devices to remotely track turtles, wolves, moose, birds or hares in different provinces and territories of Canada. The documentary series Connected wildlifepresented at ICI Explora, shows how valuable these tools are.
The objective of some research is directly linked to climate change, as you can imagine. Placing transmitters on migratory birds, for example, makes it possible to know if they modify their trajectory according to the availability of habitats. Tracking snowshoe hares allows you to see if their behavior changes in the fall, when their coat has turned white, but the first snow is slow to fall. Are they aware of their lack of camouflage during this period of desynchronization and the dangers they run?
IMAGE FROM THE SERIES CONNECTED WILDLIFE
Climate change poses a challenge to the snowshoe hare. Its coat adapts to the season and allows it to camouflage itself. However, what happens when his hair turns white in the fall and the snow is more and more expected?
“The technologies used are a bit similar from one episode to another, but it’s the way they are applied to each species that is fascinating,” observes François Balcaen, who directed half of the eight episodes of Connected wildlife (the other four are signed Christine Gosselin).
You don’t track a bat like you track a wolf. Nor with a device of the same size…
The series spends a lot of time in the field, following in the footsteps of biologists or following them over the water. It also transports viewers to the laboratories where devices are developed to measure the vital signs or movements of animals. Interesting fact: these tech labs are sometimes run by… biologists.
“Most biologists are a bit like inventors, patentees, judge François Balcaen, evoking the resourcefulness that had to be shown, a few decades ago, to adapt technological tools that were not easily manageable to the observation of animals. We see in the episode about the turtles that the scientists have to do a lot of tests to find the right way to stick a transmitter on the shells. »
Valuable cooperation
Getting your hands on the right GPS technology, for example, is not enough. You also have to find a way to tie it securely… and safe for the animal. It is therefore necessary to know its habits, its morphology, even its diet. Hence the valuable collaboration of specialized firms that understand the issues in the field. “What the biologists have told me, over the course of the series, is that the progress has been spectacular over the past ten years”, sums up François Balcaen.
Connected wildlife Although highlighting the use made of technologies, what stands out the most in the documentary series is the know-how and intimate knowledge that biologists have of the species they observe and their habitat.
One cannot scrutinize the behavior of hares without knowing where to find them, how to handle them, feed them and release them without affecting them.
“They are first of all biologists, agrees François Balcaen. Technology is used to support their research and open up leads about things they already know. These are people who have spent years in the field, who see things that we, as citizens, do not see when we walk in the forest…”
On ICI Explora on Tuesdays from June 28, with two episodes per evening, one at 8 p.m. and the other at 8:30 p.m.