The Environment Society of Oman was given a very good talk by Dr Rory Wilson about animal tracking. With the support of the ‘Rolex Awards for Enterprise’ he has developed a device to track the movement of animals. Rory calls the results a ‘daily diary because, by extrapolating the information which includes 3 dimensional movement sensors and time a scientist can surmise the events of a selected animal’s day – its daily diary.
Animal Tracking Device developed by Dr Rory Wilson
Dr Rory Wilson talks about Animal Tracking in Oman
Why was he in Oman? Last January in Oman he did a small test on an individual Arabian Leopard . It is hoped that, by using this tracking device on Leopard in the wild, more information about the Leopard in Oman will be obtained and – its future made more secure using extensive information rather than limited information and speculation. I wrote about the Arabian Leopard for ‘Oman Today’
Categories: Oman · Oman's Nature
Tagged: Animal Tracking, Arabian Leopard, daily diary, Dr Rory Wilson, Environment Society of Oman, Oman, oman blog
Grabbing a couple of bottles of water, we set off at a good walking pace under the cloud cover of the early Khareef (Monsoon) season in Salalah Oman . I enjoy walking with Hadi al Hikmani, enthusiasm is always a good companion and Hadi packages his in friendliness and knowledge. On this walk, his knowledge identified fresh ‘scat’ (excrement) on our pathway – in fact Leopard scat . Fresh, in fact, very fresh – probably less than half an hour old. In the day that followed, we walked along Leopard tracks and with all our stops and starts, examining the tracks and collecting scat we didn’t catch up with our invisible walking companion. We returned along the same path and astoundingly found more scat; the Leopard had returned to the path after we passed .
Arabian Leopard in Oman
Over a year before, on another walk with Hadi, I said to him that I would write about Oman’s Leopards; as he believes that awareness is a key to its survival. So, shamed that no article had been produced in over a year, I returned to Muscat and somehow produced a piece. Wonderfully ‘ Oman Today ’ has used it in their August edition – I’m delighted of course.
Oman Today cover August 2008
Oman is a key territory of Panthera pardus nimr, the Arabian Leopard, and, with possibly less than 200 individuals in the world, awareness may well help its survival
Categories: Oman · Oman's Nature · Salalah
Tagged: Arabian Leopard, Arabian Leopard Oman, Dhofar, Hadi Al Hickmani, Hadi al Hikmani, Oman, oman blog, Oman Leopard, Oman Today, Panthera pardus nimr, Salalah, عمان
