Tracking Wildlife at Palmyra Atoll: NASA’s Internet of Animals Project Advances Marine Conservation Efforts

Morgan Gilmour, a research scientist, explores the shallow waters of Palmyra Atoll, a home for reef sharks, to gather essential data for the Internet of Animals project.

This marine protected area in the United States is a one-of-a-kind place to learn about marine ecology and protection.

Tracking Wildlife at Palmyra Atoll — (Photo: Getty Images/ Torsten Blackwood)

Tracking All Kinds of Wildlife at Palmyra Atoll

Gilmour is a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center. For her research, she uses information from tags on animals.

About 50 small islands in the Pacific Ocean make up Palmyra Atoll. Among the many species and flora are reef sharks, manta rays, coconut crabs, and seagulls. The Internet of Animals project finds a perfect site here since it provides a unique habitat and a broad spectrum of animals.

The Nature Conservancy, the USGS, NOAA, and several colleges started the project in 2020. In 2022, wildlife tags were installed at Palmyra as part of the project. These tags give experts important information about how animals move, which helps them decide whether the current boundaries of the marine protected area work or need to be changed.

Scientists can look at how animals move and the situations around them by combining data from wildlife tags with data from satellites like NASA's Aqua, NOAA's GOES, and the U.S.-European Jason-3. With this unified method, we can fully comprehend how different species utilize their surroundings and how climate change might affect these patterns.

According to early study results, animals like yellowfin tuna, grey reef sharks, and great frigatebirds often migrate outside the protected area's boundaries. This knowledge is essential for lawmakers considering creating marine corridors or expanding protected areas to facilitate seasonal migrations.

What is NASA's Internet of Animals Project?

The Internet of Animals project hopes to help us learn more about Earth's ecosystems by combining animal tracking data with Earth observations. Researchers can learn a lot about how animals behave and use their habitats this way, which is very important for making good protection plans.

Scientists need to know how animals move, what they do, and where they need to live to do their research. This information is essential for better managing ecosystems and protecting wildlife. It helps us determine whether animals stay in protected places and how diseases like avian flu spread.

Combining animal tracking data with remote sensing data lets you learn much about how environmental conditions influence animal behavior. For example, knowing the temperature of the sea surface and the quantity of greenery in the plants can assist experts in determining how much food is available and how the weather impacts animal migrations. This strategy contributes to resolving critical questions in Earth studies, biodiversity science, and ecological management.

Even though the technology for tracking animals has come a long way, it is still imperfect for spatial and temporal clarity and tracking small animals. The Internet of Animals project aims to create a space-based system that meets the needs of people who track animals by providing them with high-resolution data and low-cost tracking devices.

The Internet of Animals project is a group effort with partners like USGS, The Nature Conservancy, NOAA, and several universities. It is funded by NASA and run at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The project's results at Palmyra Atoll could help shape protection plans and policy choices, which would help safeguard biodiversity and deal with the problems caused by climate change.

The Internet of Animals project uses satellite data and tracking wildlife to help us learn more about individual species. It also gives us a bigger picture of Earth's ecosystems, which will help guide future efforts to protect and control them.