Wake Forest University Study Takes Students In Flight With The...( ueled too often to keep pace with forag...)

From boats, biologists also cannot determine the age or sex of the birds being observed or whether they are from Tern or strangers from another nesting area.

That's why satellite tracking has proved so effective, Anderson said, recalling the satellite telephone hookup that allowed him to prepare researchers in the Galapagos for the arrival of birds he had been following at Wake Forest by e-mail in 1995.

"I'd say, 'You better be prepared for so-and-so to come back. Ten hours from now this bird is going to be showing up on your island,'" he said. "We have the same kind of interaction here."

Five years ago, Anderson said that a study like The Albatross Project would not have been possible. He said that there wasn't a transmitter small enough to not interfere with an albatrosses' flight but still powerful enough to send a signal that could be picked by by satellite.

From tracking the albatross in the Galapagos, Anderson said that the birds can fly the equivalent of a flight from New York to Miami -- or San Diego to Seattle -- and back on a feeding trip.

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Contact: Wayne Thompson
thompsow@wfu.edu
910-758-4393
Wake Forest University
5-Jan-1998