How Modern Technology is Revolutionizing the Study of Wildlife

Wolves are one of the most popular species for study in the Yellowstone National Park. Their elusive, mysterious nature, as well as their shared ancestry with man's best friend (i.e., dogs), has made them one of the most widely studied species in the American wilderness. Wolves were reintroduced to the Yellowstone Park after more than 80 of absence. Ever since, scientists have spent an enormous amount of time studying and decoding this animal's behavior. Our current knowledge of wolves is quite vast because of years and decades of study and research around the world. With the added ability to study wolves in the actual wild, this knowledge reservoir has become even richer and helpful in understanding wolves. The best way to observe and study wolves and their movement is from the air. For this purpose, the Yellowstone Park Foundation in cooperation with the camera manufacturer, Canon, has started the Aerial Eyes project, a component of which is the Raven's Eye View which helps scientists observe wolves and other Yellowstone inhabitants aerially. Over the years, scientists have been able to document a range of wolf behavior, from hunting, young ones, to their interactions with other species in the park. For years, the details of their behavior, however, remained obscure, partly due to the difficulty in tracking wolves in the Yellowstone wilderness, and the redundancy of the previously popular method of aerial radio tracking from fixed-wing aircraft flying high overhead. The Aerial Eye project, and its Raven Eye View component, which is digital in nature, has helped revolutionize wolf research in the wild and led to the emergence of a lot of details about this animal's life. Rather than tracking wolves through radio, with the help of the Raven Eye View, high resolution pictures of the wolves can be taken hundreds of feet above the ground and enhanced in a short period of time to yield detailed images of wolf behavior. This is one of the major breakthroughs not only in the study of wolves but all wild animals. The high resolution images can help identify individual wolves and the role each wolf plays in a pack. Scientists have been even able to identify the number of pups in a litter, if certain members of a pack are alive or not, and even what a particular wolf had for lunch the previous day through these high quality photographs, courtesy of the digital equipment in the Raven's Eye View. This is certainly one way that new technology has helped us remarkably in improving our understanding of nature and its myriad species. Scientists now hope to apply the same techniques to the study of other elusive creatures.

Wolves are one of the most popular species for study in the Yellowstone National Park. Their elusive, mysterious nature, as well as their shared ancestry with man's best friend (i.e., dogs), has made them one of the most widely studied species in the American wilderness. Wolves were reintroduced to the Yellowstone Park after more than 80 of absence. Ever since, scientists have spent an enormous amount of time studying and decoding this animal's behavior.

Our current knowledge of wolves is quite vast because of years and decades of study and research around the world. With the added ability to study wolves in the actual wild, this knowledge reservoir has become even richer and helpful in understanding wolves.

The best way to observe and study wolves and their movement is from the air. For this purpose, the Yellowstone Park Foundation in cooperation with the camera manufacturer, Canon, has started the Aerial Eyes project, a component of which is the Raven's Eye View which helps scientists observe wolves and other Yellowstone inhabitants aerially.

Over the years, scientists have been able to document a range of wolf behavior, from hunting, young ones, to their interactions with other species in the park. For years, the details of their behavior, however, remained obscure, partly due to the difficulty in tracking wolves in the Yellowstone wilderness, and the redundancy of the previously popular method of aerial radio tracking from fixed-wing aircraft flying high overhead.

The Aerial Eye project, and its Raven Eye View component, which is digital in nature, has helped revolutionize wolf research in the wild and led to the emergence of a lot of details about this animal's life. Rather than tracking wolves through radio, with the help of the Raven Eye View, high resolution pictures of the wolves can be taken hundreds of feet above the ground and enhanced in a short period of time to yield detailed images of wolf behavior.

This is one of the major breakthroughs not only in the study of wolves but all wild animals. The high resolution images can help identify individual wolves and the role each wolf plays in a pack. Scientists have been even able to identify the number of pups in a litter, if certain members of a pack are alive or not, and even what a particular wolf had for lunch the previous day through these high quality photographs, courtesy of the digital equipment in the Raven's Eye View.

This is certainly one way that new technology has helped us remarkably in improving our understanding of nature and its myriad species. Scientists now hope to apply the same techniques to the study of other elusive creatures.

John has been writing online for several years. His late blog is about picture scanners, large format scanner, and how you should go about buying a picture scanner

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