Choosing the most appropriate Technology

As amhibians are small, currently only VHF tags are appropriate for location studies, although Archival tags may be used to log temperature and wet/dry status.

Local movements of the small species are still best served by traditional VHF beeper tags, although if recording presence/absence (e.g. visiting a pond or feeding site) then Coded VHF tags can help prevent missing events. For more information about the advantages of Coded VHF please see our "Coded Tags or Beeper Tags?" FAQ.

Currently our GPS tags small enough for birds are Store on Board, and must be retreived to download the data. Please contact info@biotrack.co.uk for the most up to date information.

Local movements of the small species are still best served by traditional VHF beeper tags, although if recording presence/absence (for example nest feeding visits at a colony) then Coded VHF tags can help prevent missing events. For more information about the advantages of Coded VHF please see our "Coded Tags or Beeper Tags?" FAQ.

To study migration routes of species too small for satellite/GPS tags then Geolocators are better (see Archival tags), whereas Coded VHF tags are best for recording birds passing through migration points or when using aircraft to look for birds. Alternatively, if studying waterbirds, you may be interested in the depth and duration of dives and the temperature of the water, presense in the water etc.. Our Temperature Depth Recorders collect data on just that, and can be combined with Geolocators to give both dive profiles and migratory movement. Please see Archival tags

Freshwater animals can be tracked using VHF technology over short distances. Our partner, Lotek, has spent many years developing automated tracking along rivers and through hydro-electric dams etc. For more information about the advantages of Coded VHF please see our "Coded Tags or Beeper Tags?" FAQ.

In the marine environment acoustic tracking is often more suitable. For more information please enquire directly with Lotek and see acoustic secion on the "Lotek site"

Geolocators have proved very effective discovering fish migrating accross the ocean, and depth time loggers help understand the behaviour when there. For more information on archival tags suitable for marine fish please see Lotek's marine page

Technology for most invertebrates is limited by their relatively small size; but our 0.2g tags now make tracking of many more species possible. Local movements of the small species are still best served by traditional VHF beeper tags. However, if trying to record the migration of insects past a migration point, or if recording presence/absence (visits to a colony or time that pests spend in a crop) then Coded VHF tags can help prevent missing events. For more information about the advantages of Coded VHF please see our "Coded Tags or Beeper Tags?" FAQ.

The ideal for most telemetry studies is to attach the tag and automatically retrieve location data, in which case GPS gives you just that ability. We have such GPS collars as light as 190 g and suitable for many species. There are also smaller Store on Board GPS tags now available. Please contact info@biotrack.co.uk for the most up to date information. GPS technology can often be more economic for the project because labour costs are dramatically reduced.

When GPS collars are too heavy for your study species, local movements of the small species are still best served by traditional VHF beeper tags, although if recording presence/absence (for example visits to young or particular feeding areas) then Coded VHF tags combined with a DataSika Logger can help prevent missing events.
In the marine environment then geolocation and acoustic tracking is often more suitable. For more information please see Lotek's marine page

Very few Reptiles are big enough to carry remote GPS collars (smallest remote GPS collar is 190 g). However, Store on Board GPS tags that must be retreived to download data are much smaller. Please contact info@biotrack.co.uk for the most up to date information.

When GPS collars are too heavy for your study species, local movements of the small species are still best served by traditional VHF beeper tags, although if recording presence/absence (for example visits to young or particular feeding areas) then Coded VHF tags combined with a Logging Receiver can help prevent missing events. For more information about the Coded VHF mentioned above please see Coded Tags or Beeper Tags? in our FAQs