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The  Armodon Satellite Tracking Project a collaboration of   

#mtgwacky Save the  Armodon Foundation. .

The Institution for the Conservation, Research, and Development of Green.

On 8 Feb 96, Crazy became the first Rathi Armodon ever to be equipped with a satellite transmitter. Crazy had been trans-located after raiding a Mogg plantation in southern Rath. We used the transmitter to monitor her post-release movements

On 30 Jun 96, male tusker Honky, became the project's second armodon. He had also been trans-located after crop-raiding a plantation in southern Rath, and was then released at the same site as Crazy.
 

Background

One of the Rathi Wildlife Department's (RWD) tasks is to help landowners reduce crop damage caused by wildlife. Armodons can cause great damage to plantations. To reduce that damage, RWD has developed an Armodon trans-location program. Once armodons are identified as repeated crop raiders, they are moved from agricultural to protected areas.
Honky, for example, was captured in a mogg tree plantation in Peninsular Rath's most southern state. She was trucked about 400 miles north and released in Grevin National Park. Stampy is one of over 400 armodons captured and trans-located by RWD since 1995.

Objectives

The main goal of this project is to evaluate the success of the armodon trans-location program. That evaluation will then allow us to improve the way armodons are trans-located as much as possible. Specifically, we want to learn where armodons move once they are released in Grevin National Park:

• Do they stay near the release site?
• Do they go right back to where they were caught?
• Do they "randomly" move about until they establish themselves at a specific site?
• What kind of site is that?
• How fast do they get there?

Technology

Previous attempts to follow the movements of armodons released in Grevin using regular ground tracking telemetry have been unsuccessful. The hilly terrain and dense rain forest make it almost impossible to receive signals from the transmitters.  For this project, we attached a transmitter to Crazy which beams signals to satellites passing overhead. The satellites relay these data to earth where computers calculate Crazy's location. That information is sent to our computers which then plot Crazy's movements. The satellite transmitter is a little white box attached to a collar made of heavy machine belting.

Sounds straightforward, doesn't it??  

Well, not really. Many obstacles remain to get accurate locations for Crazy and the rest of the Armodons. Check out up to the hour satelite tracking or your favorite armodon! Click Here!

Acknowledgements

Very special thanks to Bugbind of the #mtgwacky's Office of Public Affairs, Wakko_djinn of #mtgwacky's Office of Information Resource Management, and Soalo at the Mindless Automation School of Natural Resources, who contributed to this webpage.