Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 12/01) - Students will now find accessing information on migratory species at risk one keyboard touch away thanks to an interactive web researching program that actually shows where the animals are on ground or in the water.

Judy Dragon shows of the new model of caribou collars being used in the field. Previously, researchers had to recapture the animals to take them off. The new collars are designed to fall off after a signal is transmitted to it via satellite. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Caribou technician

The Space for Species project was officially launched in Ottawa Oct. 9.

It is targeted towards students in Grades 6 through 9, interested in learning a little more about animal migration routes than what can be traditionally taught in the classroom.

Initiated by Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk, and nurtured on by the Canadian Wildlife Service, Canadian Wildlife Federation, and Natural Resources Canada, the program currently has four species on its data bank: The leatherback sea turtle, eider duck, polar bear, and caribou.

All but the leatherback sea turtle range into the Northwest Territories.

"Three species out of four are from the North, so I think it's got a lot of relevance to Northern communities," says Mary Rothfels, a scientific advisor with the Canadian

Wildlife Service in Hull, Quebec.

The program uses satellite telemetry imaging to map out species' range on its web page. Satellite telemetry is nothing new to animal researchers. They have been using this space age technology to track migratory routes for several years.

Judy Dragon, a caribou technician with the Wildlife and Fisheries Division of RWED, says the satellite tracking system has been very successful shedding light into the movements the Bathurst Caribou herd make on their bi-annual migrations.

Using specially designed collars that transmit a signal to a satellite, the caribou herd can be tracked to within a 150 meters of its actual location, and the information is then relayed back to the researcher within 20 minutes.

The caribou collars transmit a signal every five days.

"The biggest thing we've noticed since this program began was a range extension into Saskatchewan," says Dragon, referring to her work with the West Kitikmeot Slave Study, which has monitored the herd using satellite telemetry since 1996.

The Bathurst herd had been long thought to range into Northern Saskatchewan, and Aboriginal hunters had long attested this fact, but it was the satellite tracking program that finally confirmed to scientists that the herd occasionally migrated into the province.

The same research methods are now being used to teach students in the classroom.

"It's a great learning tool," says Rothfels. "It gives students a chance to actually see what the scientists on the field are seeing."