ambience: Radio tracking device When scientists try to keep track of an animal in the wild, they often put a collar on the creature with a small radio transmitter attached. It sends out signals much like the ones we’re listening to right now. But just try putting one of those radio collars on a rhinoceros! I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by DuPont. “The rhino isn’t really designed to hold a collar. It doesn’t have a proper neck. It’s got a sort of bullet-shaped head and neck, and it’s very difficult, even with the best of designs, to get the collar to stay on.” And that’s not the only problem with radio collars, according to Zoe Jewell, a zoologist with Rhinowatch who studies the black rhinoceros in southern Africa. The animals have to be caught and immobilized to get the collar on. This handling by humans can be stressful and it appears to cause a lower fertility rate in female black rhinos. This is especially worrisome because the species is endangered — there’s got to be a better way to track a rhinoceros. “We’re trying to find ways of monitoring which don’t interfere with the animal’s natural behavior or in any way disturb them. And one technique we’re developing at the moment is to see whether we can identify black rhino from their footprints. And the footprint of a rhino is unique to that individual. What we do is we take a photograph, we scan it onto a computer, and then we take critical measurements and feed those into a statistical program which allows us to separate out individuals. So we have a sort of library of individuals, and when we go out into the bush and we find footprints from an unknown animal, we can take a photograph of that, bring it back and slot it into the library so that we know exactly which animal it was, and then we can map it to form an idea of where the animal goes, a distribution, a range map.” Please visit our website at nationalgeographic.com. Pulse of the Planet is presented by DuPont, bringing you the miracles of science, with additional support provided by the National Science Foundation.
Black Rhinoceros: Monitoring
Scientists trying to track an animal in the wild often use a collar with a small radio transmitter attached. But just try putting a collar on a rhinoceros!
Air Date:11/29/2000
Scientist:
Transcript:
ambience: Radio tracking device When scientists try to keep track of an animal in the wild, they often put a collar on the creature with a small radio transmitter attached. It sends out signals much like the ones we're listening to right now. But just try putting one of those radio collars on a rhinoceros! I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by DuPont. "The rhino isn't really designed to hold a collar. It doesn't have a proper neck. It's got a sort of bullet-shaped head and neck, and it's very difficult, even with the best of designs, to get the collar to stay on." And that's not the only problem with radio collars, according to Zoe Jewell, a zoologist with Rhinowatch who studies the black rhinoceros in southern Africa. The animals have to be caught and immobilized to get the collar on. This handling by humans can be stressful and it appears to cause a lower fertility rate in female black rhinos. This is especially worrisome because the species is endangered -- there's got to be a better way to track a rhinoceros. "We're trying to find ways of monitoring which don't interfere with the animal's natural behavior or in any way disturb them. And one technique we're developing at the moment is to see whether we can identify black rhino from their footprints. And the footprint of a rhino is unique to that individual. What we do is we take a photograph, we scan it onto a computer, and then we take critical measurements and feed those into a statistical program which allows us to separate out individuals. So we have a sort of library of individuals, and when we go out into the bush and we find footprints from an unknown animal, we can take a photograph of that, bring it back and slot it into the library so that we know exactly which animal it was, and then we can map it to form an idea of where the animal goes, a distribution, a range map." Please visit our website at nationalgeographic.com. Pulse of the Planet is presented by DuPont, bringing you the miracles of science, with additional support provided by the National Science Foundation.