What’s all this noise about acoustics? With support from the Bayne Lab at the University of Alberta, the ABMI has used autonomous recording units (ARUs) and sound technology to monitor the environment for over 10 years. Why ARUs? These robust sensors can be set up and left in the field for months or years, allowing [...]
All posts in Bioacoustic Unit
Making WildTrax: It’s (Not) a Kind of Magic – Behind the Screen
WildTrax is one major piece of software–your one-stop online platform for managing, storing, processing, sharing and discovering biological and environmental sensor data. In other words, WildTrax is a repository for data from autonomous recording units (ARUs), remote cameras, and other wildlife surveying methods from across Canada. In fact, WildTrax currently hosts over 66 million photos [...]
Easy as 1-2-3, but 1-2-3-4-5 might be better: How long should a point count take?
Péter Sólymos, a statistical ecologist with the ABMI, Boreal Avian Modelling project, and the U of A, brings us a guest post about his team’s new paper on point count methods for sampling boreal birds. Humans attach more value to rare things, but in conservation biology, rarity often implies an elevated risk. For example, smaller [...]
The BERA Project: Advancing Ecological Recovery Monitoring in Alberta
What do you get when you put together a room full of experts in remote sensing, environmental science, and the Internet of Things? It sounds like the start of a joke, but the answer is the Boreal Ecosystem Recovery and Assessment (BERA) Project. Hailing from academia, industry, government, and ENGOs including the ABMI, this diverse [...]
Listening in on climate change
The University of Alberta and ABMI’s Bioacoustic Unit was recently featured on CBC’s Radio Active! Listen to Dr. Erin Bayne talk about using ARUs to track vocalizing species across the province, and check out more news coverage here, here, and here!
February 2, 2016 update: The Bioacoustic Unit in the Alberta Farmer Express!
The University of Alberta and the ABMI launch the Bioacoustic Unit!
The Bayne Lab at the University of Alberta and the ABMI’s Application Centre are pleased to announce a new partnership: The Bioacoustic Unit! Many people are concerned about their environment and the wildlife in it. However, for many wildlife species we don’t have the information we need to make informed decisions about natural resources and [...]
Better Environmental Management Through Monitoring: The Story of the Yellow Rail in the Lower Athabasca
This story originally appeared in AEMERA’s Newsletter, published March 31, 2015. “The approval holder shall provide a plan or participate in the development of a plan for the monitoring and mitigation of the Yellow Rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis) by [given date] to the satisfaction of the Director…” – Approval condition for oil sands mine project The [...]
On the trail of the Yellow Rail…
Check out ABMI’s guest post on the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s blog, Land Lines, and learn about how we’re monitoring this elusive marsh bird, the Yellow Rail, in the Lower Athabasca region of Alberta! Top photo: Yellow Rail, Dominic Sherony.