Flying Fox Tracking

A key motivating application for long term tracking is to understand the behaviour of migratory birds. In particular, flying foxes are major cause for disease spread in both Australia and in Southeast Asia. These animals are highly mobile, traveling tens of kilometres in a single night and covering distances in excess of 1000 km with the migratory season. In Australia, flying foxes are responsible for the spread of the Hendra virus, which is lethal to horses and harmful to humans. the processes and dynamics that underpin disease propagation within a group of flying foxes are not well understood, which is the main driver to monitor their movements. CSIRO ICT and ecology researchers are working together on developing a new generation of energy-efficient ICT technologies that can continuously track the position of flying foxes, by incorporating expert knowledge on their movement patterns.

This work has won the QLD iAward Merit Award in  2014