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Sea Turtle GPS
Insert GPS tracking devices into sea turtles and other large marine animals to combat poachers | |
Apparently it's now possible to track the fate of chairs abandoned on the streets of New York using GPS (see link).
Now, no one really cares about the fate of discarded furniture, but a whole lot of people care about, say, the poaching of sea turtles.
So this idea is to insert GPS tracking devices
into the shells of baby sea turtles (they are bred, for example, in the Cayman Islands; in other places, they are "helped" by volunteers to cross the dangerous gauntlet of the beach).
Then not only will the tracking information be of immense value to researchers, but when the signals stray onto dry land, the local police authorities can be alerted to capture the poachers. (I envisage the locations being tracked programmatically.)
This approach can also be used for other large marine animals, at least where we can easily get our hands on them.
Tracking Endangered Chairs
http://www.boingboi...-placed-on-str.html
(Link courtesy subtractadddivide) [DrCurry, Jan 10 2010]
Sea turtle tracking via satellite
http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/
They can sort of tell when a turtle suddenly moves fast in a straight line (i.e. on a ship), but don't react in the way this idea proposes. [jutta, Jan 10 2010]
[link]
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Hail the return of the great DrCurry... and with a first class idea! (where've you been?) |
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I'd also like to see devices planted inside whales (probably a bit hard to do) that would explode when the scum of the sea Japanese Whalers started cutting them up, after they had dragged them on board the factory ship of death, The Nisshin Maru. |
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*waves*.
So, how would this improve the existing satellite sea turtle tracking programs? |
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I'm not sure this would be good for the turtles. Most
species of turtle are quite intelligent and sensitive
creatures (indeed, for their brain size, they are particularly
intelligent, perhaps as a result of their longevity).
Loggerhead turtles have been shown to be trainable to
solve puzzles as complex as those tackled by macaques. |
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In particular, their mating rituals are often complex and
tender, involving a long courtship and lots of subtle
signalling, testing and responding by both partners. Now,
imagine the scene: several miles off the coast of some
tropical island, male and female turtle are swimming
slowly around eachother, circling and swooping, and
drawing gradually closer and closer together. After
minutes - almost an hour - of this, they are almost ready
to make the embrace that will finalize their courtship and
see the start of a new generation of tiny, perfect turtles.
Then, just as the critical moment approaches, the male's
shell reverberates with "in two hundred yards, turn left".
The moment is lost, and another tiny step is taken on the
road to extinction. |
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//a whole lot of people care about, say, the poaching of sea turtles// |
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lol, I hope that's true. I suppose a whole lot do, in an absolute sense, but a sadly small percentage of people. |
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Poaching turtles is criminal - they should really be lightly simmered, otherwise the meat is too tough. |
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Perhaps a more 'proactive' approach could be taken: Sea Turtle RPG launcher? |
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jutta:
a) smaller tracking device (possibly magically so - not sure of the range/seaworthiness of the devices used for the chairs).
b) quantity of turtles tracked (lots more) (of course, this assumes there are lots more we can track - maybe that's all there are).
c) most importantly, automated alerts about poached turtles and, hopefully, bringing the poachers to justice, thus deterring further depredation. |
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(Not sure how poached turtle compares to turtle soup.) |
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