Page 22 - Life_In_Naples_Magazine_January_2015
P. 22
Zoos using
the doppler effect
and satellites
to save the loudest bird on earth
by Tim L. Tetzlaff
PROCNIAS TRICARUNCULATA Director of Conservation & Communications | Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens
A s the team set up their treetop equipment in the cloud forest,
the birds they had dedicated so much of their lives to seemed
to be welcoming them. Research team leader Dr. Robin Bjork
stood mesmerized by the “symphony of loud bells, bonks, and
squeaks calling all around us.” These were the exotic sounds of one of Central
America’s most endangered birds – and the world’s loudest.
Tucked away in the jungles on a mountainous spine of the Sierra de
Agalta National Park in eastern Honduras, it’s both ironic and unsurprising
that most people have never heard the loudest bird on Earth. And yet that’s
just the beginning of enigmas when it comes to the three-wattled bellbird. To
unravel some of those mysteries, Naples Zoo along with two other accredited
zoos (Zoo Boise and Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund) recently funded
new groundbreaking research in hopes of obtaining key conservation data in
a virgin cloud forest that is also home to tapirs, jaguars, ocelots, monkeys, and
hundreds of other bird species.
The birds’ unusual name comes from their iconic bell-like vocalization that
can be heard over a kilometer away combined with the three long ‘wattles’
that hang from the corners of the mouth and beak of the male bellbirds.
(Hear it on the Zoo’s website: http://goo.gl/YRtuHG)
In late September 2014, the field research team traveled deep into the
THREE WATTLED BELLBIRD jungle to attach Argos transmitter units to four of the rare bellbirds before
releasing them back into the wild – a first-ever tracking of this bird using
satellites allowing for data collection over great distances in remote areas.
A technological wonder because of their light weight, these state-of-the-art
monitoring devices are solar powered and weigh less than a fifth of an ounce.
The Argos satellite system locates the transmitter using the Doppler
effect – commonly noticed as the change in pitch from high to low as you
listen to a train whistle as it passes. As the train approaches, the sound
waves are effectively shortened in relation to you creating the higher pitch
and lengthened as it passes giving the lower pitch. (It also works with other
waves and is part of the discussion when it comes to “red shift” and how
astronomers discovered that galaxies are moving away from Earth.) So just
like your location by the train track determines when you will hear the change
in pitch of the whistle, the Argos satellites work together to locate the bird
based on the changing wave frequencies received from the birds’ transmitters.
This field research is a crucial component of the Zoo Conservation
Outreach Group’s (ZCOG) Three-Wattled Bellbird Conservation Monitoring
Program. This latest expedition has already enabled the researchers to begin
studying the complex migratory movements of the bellbirds in their range
between Honduras and Panama. Bellbirds congregate in the rugged Sierra de
the doppler effect
and satellites
to save the loudest bird on earth
by Tim L. Tetzlaff
PROCNIAS TRICARUNCULATA Director of Conservation & Communications | Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens
A s the team set up their treetop equipment in the cloud forest,
the birds they had dedicated so much of their lives to seemed
to be welcoming them. Research team leader Dr. Robin Bjork
stood mesmerized by the “symphony of loud bells, bonks, and
squeaks calling all around us.” These were the exotic sounds of one of Central
America’s most endangered birds – and the world’s loudest.
Tucked away in the jungles on a mountainous spine of the Sierra de
Agalta National Park in eastern Honduras, it’s both ironic and unsurprising
that most people have never heard the loudest bird on Earth. And yet that’s
just the beginning of enigmas when it comes to the three-wattled bellbird. To
unravel some of those mysteries, Naples Zoo along with two other accredited
zoos (Zoo Boise and Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund) recently funded
new groundbreaking research in hopes of obtaining key conservation data in
a virgin cloud forest that is also home to tapirs, jaguars, ocelots, monkeys, and
hundreds of other bird species.
The birds’ unusual name comes from their iconic bell-like vocalization that
can be heard over a kilometer away combined with the three long ‘wattles’
that hang from the corners of the mouth and beak of the male bellbirds.
(Hear it on the Zoo’s website: http://goo.gl/YRtuHG)
In late September 2014, the field research team traveled deep into the
THREE WATTLED BELLBIRD jungle to attach Argos transmitter units to four of the rare bellbirds before
releasing them back into the wild – a first-ever tracking of this bird using
satellites allowing for data collection over great distances in remote areas.
A technological wonder because of their light weight, these state-of-the-art
monitoring devices are solar powered and weigh less than a fifth of an ounce.
The Argos satellite system locates the transmitter using the Doppler
effect – commonly noticed as the change in pitch from high to low as you
listen to a train whistle as it passes. As the train approaches, the sound
waves are effectively shortened in relation to you creating the higher pitch
and lengthened as it passes giving the lower pitch. (It also works with other
waves and is part of the discussion when it comes to “red shift” and how
astronomers discovered that galaxies are moving away from Earth.) So just
like your location by the train track determines when you will hear the change
in pitch of the whistle, the Argos satellites work together to locate the bird
based on the changing wave frequencies received from the birds’ transmitters.
This field research is a crucial component of the Zoo Conservation
Outreach Group’s (ZCOG) Three-Wattled Bellbird Conservation Monitoring
Program. This latest expedition has already enabled the researchers to begin
studying the complex migratory movements of the bellbirds in their range
between Honduras and Panama. Bellbirds congregate in the rugged Sierra de
