Sea otters are important mammals in marine ecosystems and are essential to maintaining balance in kelp forests. That's why the Space Shop, a maker space at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, is developing a modern tracking device designed to humanely fit onto the hind flippers of sea otters. This new and improved tracking device is still being tested, but once it’s ready to be deployed, scientists will be able to track sea otter populations with far more precision and frequency than was previously possible. In the future, the same technology could be used to track other wild animals.
"We're bringing state-of-the-art tech to the challenge of tracking wildlife," said Chad Frost, the principal investigator for the project at Ames. "Using modern networking technologies and economical prototyping techniques like 3D printing, this collaboration is creating a new kind of tag that will fundamentally change the scale of science that can come out of tracking wildlife like sea otters."
The project draws on NASA's electronics design and fabrication capabilities while partnering with the United States Geological Survey and the Monterey Bay Aquarium for their scientific expertise. The tags have also gone through initial testing with sea otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, with more to follow as the project develops.
