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Science Quickly

Biologists Track Tweets to Monitor Birds

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2019

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Conservation biologists can track the whereabouts of endangered species by the sounds they make, avoiding cumbersome trackers and tags. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

0:22.7

.jp. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:33.5

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Taliatta.

0:38.3

For more than a hundred years, this sound has been missing from New Zealand's forests.

0:44.3

It's like two stones being clicked together or two marbles being clicked together. It's a very simple call.

0:50.3

Oliver Metcalf, a conservation biologist at Manchester Metropolitan University,

0:55.9

has studied the small bird that makes the noise, the he he.

0:59.4

By the 1880s, it was all but wiped out by rats and disease, which came along with colonists.

1:04.8

But the he he did manage to survive on a predator-free barrier island called Tehauturu Otoi, and now they're being

1:12.7

reintroduced to mainland New Zealand.

1:15.2

And they're going through the process of trying to restore the ecosystems they had prior to

1:20.3

colonial settlement there, so they're bringing back the birds one by one.

1:24.1

But the dense forests and the bird's unusual behavior makes them tough to monitor.

1:28.8

They're very inquisitive. They love people, so they'll come and see you. If they hear you coming,

1:32.7

they'll come and see you, but that means that you have a problem with knowing what they would

1:35.4

have been doing when you're not there. So instead, Metcalf and his collaborators from the

1:39.4

Zoological Society of London use that distinctive call to their advantage, using an array of audio recorders

1:46.4

to eavesdrop on 40 he-he-he birds reintroduced to the North Island's Rotokare Scenic Reserve.

1:52.7

A month later, analysis of the calls revealed that the birds had abandoned some areas of the reserve

...

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