Fast tracking

Experienced tracker Louis Liebenberg first conceived of the CyberTracker device in the early 1990s while out with the Kalahari Bushmen in Africa. Because many of the Bushmen are illiterate, their findings weren't making it to the outside world. So Mr. Liebenberg created CyberTracker, tested the first version in 1996 in South Africa's Karoo National Park and, later, with the Bushmen themselves. Since then, trackers and even ecotourism operators and hiking clubs around the world have begun using the system. CyberTracker Conservation, a nonprofit organization in Cape Town, South Africa, that manages several field projects, estimates some 400 projects around the world now use the technology.

The more people who collect data, the more comprehensive wildlife assessments will become - the technology's second advantage. In the predigital era, coordinating more than half a dozen trackers was very difficult. "The CyberTracker allows many trackers to share their observations in a way that was not possible before, both geographically and through time," Liebenberg says. "Over the next few decades, we will be able to combine the collective efforts of hundreds of trackers."

The third advantage involves the technology's speed and ease of delivery. Wilson of Harvard envisions researchers taking detailed digital pictures of their finds and e-mailing them back to specialists who can distinguish and catalog the new species. "When the original diagnoses from print literature are added, experts can proceed with revisions at a speed and an economy vastly greater than enjoyed in the predigital era," he writes. "In one step, the practice of taxonomy is globalized and democratized...."

Sometimes, the new technology helps in less obvious ways. In 1991, wildlife biologists Zoe Jewell and her husband, Sky Alibhai, began tracking the threatened black rhinos of Zimbabwe. The couple used radio collars, temporarily immobilizing each animal to attach them. Four years later, the couple began to have its doubts about the technology.

By immobilizing females, the scientists found evidence they were inhibiting their fertility. In other words, in trying to save the herd, the biologists were inadvertently making it more difficult for it to reproduce. Their solution: identify rhinos the old-fashioned way - by their footprints.

Of course, the natives who specialized in the technique had generations of experience. But the biologists found they could approximate that knowledge using careful measurement of tracks and statistical software. Now, instead of radio-tracking, the researchers take digital pictures, download them onto a laptop and, using the statistical "fingerprint" software, figure out which rhino has sauntered by.

Not only does the technique improve the herd's chances for reproduction, but it costs less. The couple estimates traditional radio-collar tracking methods would cost $85,000 a year. With their new system, aside from an initial $5,000 investment in equipment, the system is basically free. It also involves local people - because they can take the digital photos and send them back to the researchers. And unlike radio tracking, which is usually done in daylight, the new method gives the couple data on the animals' night movements, when they're most active.

The biologists are now adapting their technique to help save wild tigers in India. Another group is using the software to protect the endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat in Australia.

Here in the US, communities are using software to track everything from deer movements to how many trees there are.

"Before, it was a big guess," says Mary Lindley, community services director of Moorpark, Calif., which contracted with a company to inventory its trees so it could accurately budget for tree care.

And maybe it's the beginning of finding out what's really out there in the world's meadows and forests.

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