Migratory Birds with Satellite Transmitters can Help Study Environmental Changes
Written by AZoCleantechMay 20 2021
Migratory birds fitted with small satellite transmitters in their featherlight “backpacks” can teach people more about changes in the environment upon being monitored. Moreover, it could help prevent biodiversity loss.
Great knot flock, including one individual carrying the satellite transmitter, at Raoping, Guangdong, China in April 2017. Image Credit: Ginny Chan.
That is a crucial message in the PhD-thesis that Ying Chi Chan, a PhD candidate of the University of Groningen, based at the Royal NIOZ (Netherlands Institute for Sea Research), defends on May 28
th, 2021.
Bar-tailed godwits with transmitters on their backs, directed us to an important area along the coast of the Yellow Sea at Dafeng-Dongtai-Rudong, where many birds roost and feed. Showing the importance of this area for migratory birds led to a halt of intended land-claim in the tidal zone of the Yellow Sea.