Pune: An IITian, Anant Gokhale and a mechanical engineer, who decided to use his expertise to assist efforts related to nature conservation by assisting the study of avian life had developed GPRS-based bird trackers which can be mounted on the chicks like a bird backpack. By this tracker, the bird’s migratory course can be charted. 

To track the migratory course, a SIM card is incorporated within it along with a solar panel is also installed so that the batteries won’t go out of powers and the tracking could be done successfully.

Gokhale said, “The tracking system can chart a bird’s migratory course, its speed, the altitude, and the direction of flight. The tracker can transmit regular data feed by an SMS.”

He added saying, “The breeding season has already begun and the ornithologist in consultation with Forest Department is in the stage of identifying nest of Heron and Stork birds. Once these nests are identified, we will collect the eggs of these birds and after their hatching process is over, the tracker will be mounted on them using good teflon tapes.”

An experiment was carried out a few months ago in Talegaon by Ela Foundation and Forest Department to study the reasons for the decline in vulture population. The team successfully mounted the motion detecting cameras near the birds’ nests.

The same camera running with only one set of batteries yielded around 8,000 photographs. 

He further added saying, only 10 tracking system will be mounted on the chicks, he said that they will be able to receive the data only in January 2018.

This kind of data is necessary because the conservationists need such data to guide government policies on the ecosystem. He told Sakal Times that it will be a pleasure for me if this tracker could provide two or three months’ data on a bird’s migration.