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.
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Biodiversity, Citizen Science, Ecological Monitoring, Monitoring, Regulation, Visual Technologies
Air Pollution Robot
The dangers of air pollution to human health are well documented, though the traditional methodology of collecting and reporting on sample lags behind the need to keep abreast and regulate air pollution in a meaningful amount of time. The use of drones and robots have been identified by researchers as resources that can be tweaked […]
Artificial Life, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Industry/Natural Commodities, Lifestyle, Monitoring
Telematic Rivers
Erica Kermani’s artwork seeks to answer a central question: if rivers were seeing an equal, living entity, would humans take issues like climate change threatening them more seriously? In his year-long art exhibition in 2017, Kermani, in collaboration with Diana Salcedo & Jeana Chesnik, created a new forum of interaction between humans and rivers to […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies
Co-occupied Boundaries
Art is easily found in nature but rarely is what considered art today inherently natural. The concept of co-occupied mediums that serve to be both functional for nature and aesthetically pleasing to people is being actively explored by Asya Ilgun and Phil Ayres, from the CITAstudio at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies