For this news we have been waiting for almost half a year. Fitted with our datalogger Steppe Eagle Aquila nipalensis started transmitting data again. After spending the winter in Oman, the bird started its spring migration towards the breeding grounds in Kazakhstan. As the gsm network is rather a luxury on the vast steppes, the contact with the bird was lost. Occasionally every 2 months we were receiving small portions of data that proved only that the bird was still alive. Apart from these sporadic moments the bird seemd to master how to avoid any contact with us.
The situation changed first when the bird abaondoned the breeding territories in his annual autumn journey. New data arrived from Iran. Here the bird stopped to rest. Fortunatelly for us within the gsm network range. The logger could start sending not only current coordinates, but also the past data stored in memory. Here additional options of our loggers came handy. Changing the data transmission intervals enabled quicker data transfer. Since then hundreds of fixes are being received daily, unveiling the mistery of eagle's life within the last six months. There are some few thousands of fixes to be sent and at the moment the logger is finishing transmitting the data from June (sending stored data comes from the latest to the oldest entries).
Monitoring the species turns out a crucial conservation factor. Over the recent 20 years dramatic decline in population is being observed. Only in Kazakhstan the numbers depleted from 250 thousands to mere 35 thousands pairs.
Further information on our Steppe Eagle can be found on a special blog page.