Call for a critical review of widespread use of animal tracking devices

Animal tracking has undergone a technological revolution providing insight into biological details that were impossible to address until now. However, the increasing ease of access to tracking devices (biologgers) may lead to trivializing this technology. Consequently, many projects may not extract as much scientific knowledge as possible and neglect the ethical duties towards the tagged animals. Here we demonstrate this process of trivialization empirically on a local and global scale and propose some guidelines to avoid it., , , # Call for a critical review of widespread use of animal tracking devices

DOI: 10.5061/dryad.547d7wmfc

Three sets of data are presented here. Firstly, data on the proportion of projects registered on Movebank.org with less than 10 biologgers per project by starting year. These data clearly show how this proportion is following an upward trajectory.

Secondly, the data corresponding to the biologging projects on raptors in the Iberian Peninsula (years 1978-2020) are shown. Included are: starting year of each project, number of biologgers used and whether the project generated scientific publications, grey literature or was not published at all. The data shows how projects generate less and less scientific knowledge and how the number of biologgers used is a good proxy for whether the project will generate scientific knowledge or not.

Finally, data from interviews carried out with 29 biologging experts on the existing animal handling laws in each country, their effectiveness and the p...