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SMS in Wild Life

Chemical Repellent Activated by SMS to Disperse Birds on the Runway - 30 Aug 2004

The highly modern Singapore Air Force is plagued by migratory egrets that appear between September and November, causing fighter planes to crash if sucked into the jet engines, reports Spacewar.com.

The Air Force base has come up with several solutions to this problem; importing aggressive hawks from Germany to help scare the birds off, using flares, using digitally recorded bird distress calls or, and of interest to this column, using a chemical repellant dispenser activated by SMS text messages from the control tower whenever unwelcome avian guests are spotted on the runway.

SMS Technology Keeps Wild Wolf on the Map - 18 Aug 2004

Norwegian researchers have used cellphone text messaging for the first time to track a young wolf that recently crossed the border from neighbouring Sweden, according to iol.

"The wolf is tagged with a transmitter that transmits short text messages whenever the animal is near a cellphone communication antenna.

"Via the SMS messages we receive, we can locate where the wolf is, and we also get a time log," researcher Petter Wabakken told public broadcaster NRK.

The technology is cheap and enables the researchers to track the wolf which roams a large area, Wabakken said."

Tracking Moose by SMS - 2 Mar 2004

The New Zealand Star reports that researchers from the University of Agricultural Sciences of Stockholm are tagging several dozen moose with special cell phones to track their eating habits and movements across the country. Updates by SMS will be sent to the scientists 7 times a day.

Other such experiences have been conducted involving both wildlife and SMS. Last year, UK's Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust tagged 20'000 geese and tracked them with satellite technology from the breeding grounds of Canada to Ireland, a 3'000 km flight. Mobile phone users were able to sign up online for text messages on the whereabouts of the migrating geese.

And from the Scottish waters, seals sent out SMS to scientists, according to an article in Ananova. Tiny tags were fitted on their coats to track their movements and their location pinpointed by satellite global positioning system. As the seals approached shorelines and were within mobile phone coverage, data stored was then sent by SMS from the seals to the land.