OpenCollar
Designing, testing, manufacturing, and placing collars on wildlife is a long, complicated, and expensive journey, all in the name of collecting helpful data on a particular species. OpenCollar is a website and collaborative platform created in 2018 by Jeroen de Looze and a team of innovators who want to open up the world of collar tracking to a “cooperative, internet-based community” where designs and methods can be shared and used worldwide. Users are encouraged to upload the specs to their collar hardware and software that they have personally designed or used in the field. OpenCollar does not only prove useful to researchers; students, tech-savvy conservation enthusiasts, tech buffs, or citizen scientists who have dabbled in collars and colour design are more than welcome to upload images, videos, and specs for collar designs as well. Sharing this information for free means that barriers (particularly financial in nature), in finding and developing collars are lowered or completely eliminated because somebody in the community has likely already created collars similar in use and design. OpenCollar received the support of the WWF and other notable international conservancy groups, though the website does not appear to have been launched yet, so it is difficult to say when or even if this internet-based community will contribute en masse.
Categories
Biodiversity, Citizen Science, Ecological Monitoring, Monitoring, Regulation, Visual Technologies
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