By Anna Burns-Francis
The albatross is one of New Zealand’s most recognised birds, but there is one thing we are yet to find out about them.
Research at Otago University hopes to uncover just where the royal albatross goes when it flies out to see, thanks to the help of a cellphone SIM card.
A tiny tag attached to the bird’s back will be the key to unlocking information we will never be able to see for ourselves.
“We know they can travel over 100km an hour, so… in an hour’s time, the right wind, they could be 100km off the coast,” says Department of Conservation spokesman Lyndon Perriman.
The bird’s monster 3-metre wing span allows it to soar and glide great distances to find food for a chick – a constant task in its first six months of parenthood.
“It takes both adults that next six months of just going out to sea, hundreds of kilometres, coming back, feeding the chick, and they’re gone again within five minutes heading back out again,” says Mr Perriman.
Past studies of the albatross have been land-based. But the small tags, made at Otago University, are actually minute cellphones – using GPS to record where the birds go in search of food.
A SIM card records their movements, which is then transmitted as a text message.
When the birds come back into phone range of Taiaroa Head.
“They go to different feeding areas at that time of year,” says Mr Perriman. “But we’ve got no way of finding that out, other than putting on tracking devices.”
Solar power keeps the tags going while out at sea and results already show the birds can fly hundreds of kilometers in a day.
“Thanks to advances in tracking technologies, it is possible to track them for a whole year,” says Otago University spokesperson Jun Sugishita.
There are hopes once the technology is a proven success, it will take flight again with overseas projects.
3 News