CyberTracking snow leopards

Published in 2007

The work of another South African, Louis Liebenberg who won a Rolex Award in 1998, is proving highly useful to Rodney Jackson’s snow leopard project. Liebenberg developed his hand-held computer, called a CyberTracker, to enable African Bushmen to record electronically the behaviour patterns of animals. Rodney Jackson is now teaching participants in his Himalayan project to use the device to monitor snow leopards to provide instantaneous records of valuable data.

The software used in the hand-held GPS device allows users to record complex geo-referenced wildlife field observations through a palette of simple icons. The information is then readily translated into detailed maps and charts. In late 2002, CyberTracker software played a critical role in pinpointing gorilla wildlife mortalities from the deadly Ebola virus in eastern Congo’s Lossi sanctuary. It was one of the more striking examples where its use proved invaluable. “The CyberTracker was used to follow the spread of the virus,” says Liebenberg. The CyberTracker has been now used in over 54 countries by over 20,000 people in a wide variety of applications, from studying Mongolian wild camel populations to disaster relief for Sri Lankan tsunami victims. Liebenberg is currently at work on a promising new digital field guide that will feature pictures and text and allow users to identify plants and species unknown to them.

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