Wildlife tracking is nothing new, but it's certainly not without limitations. When pursuing animals, particularly birds, in some places like rough mountains and vast oceans, the traditional method, VHF tracking which uses GPS tags (跟踪器), often ends up with the signal of animals lost.
A newly developed set of UAVs (无人机) with radio tags aims to solve this problem. ''The swift parrot was the original inspiration for the development of the system. The swift parrots are migratory (季节迁徙的) birds. Before reaching their destination, they'll fly across vast areas of land. Besides, during their flying, they tend to choose a random place for temporary food and rest. And they use different areas as their destinations each year depending on where their food is available. So their destinations each year can also be random. The randomnness can make it hard for us to judge in advance where they'll exactly go and more difficult to track them,"explains Saunders.
"So it's necessary to use tags to track them. But GPS tags are not congruent with swift parrots since these creatures are too small, which makes it hard to attach the large GPS tags to them. Besides, GPS signals can be poor in remote and rough areas. Therefore we had to find a new way to search large pieces of land more effectively. We had an idea to attach smaller radio tags to them and use particular UAVs to track those radio tags to study their movements."
These UAVs only need to fly beside the parrots to track their whereabouts while other systems need to fly directly overhead for a visual sighting. Saunders says, "Our system listens for tag signals, and works most effectively at a distance so it can identify where the animals are and help us observe them without influencing their flying routes."
As for the improvement of UAVs, now the scientists want to develop a version that has stronger lifting ability and flies farther without being charged in the midway. And then it can track animals in more remote and rough surroundings that were previously inaccessible, and shed light on species that have been unable to be tracked until now.
【小题1】What is the major problem of traditional wildlife tracking?| A．Failing to reach rural areas. | B．Failing to follow routine methods. |
| C．Losing track of GPS tags sometimes. | D．Losing track of the animals sometimes. |
| A．UAVs are modeled after their shape. | B．UAVs can be attached to their bodies. |
| C．Their migratory route can be hard to predict. | D．Their flying can get interrupted by humans. |
| A．They can fly quite high in the sky. | B．They help catch and attack their targets. |
| C．They help track birds without disturbing them. | D．They can record the sounds sent by various birds. |
| A．By getting rid of radio tags. | B．By reducing their production cost. |
| C．By increasing their weight and size. | D．By improving their energy storage and engines. |
