eBIRDS · NOVEL SYSTEM FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING BASED ON THE AUTOMATIC DETECTION OF BIRDS

In 2001, EU countries committed themselves to halt biodiversity decline by 2010, and to evaluate this target. As such, a number of international conventions requiring bird populations to be monitored are actually in force.Traditional birds’ ringing -using metallic rings- implies identifying the animal at one site and then recapturing it at a different site or in a different moment which provides spatial, temporal, physiological and behavioural information of individuals (mark-recapture techniques).INKOA has developed e-BIRDS System, which consists of a robust system to automatically and unequivocally identify bird individuals on the basis of radio frequency identification (RFID). The e-BIRDS System comprises (1) a bird feeders network with integrated RFID reader and antenna, (2) system architecture for wireless data collection and (3) user friendly interface for the individual identification of birds. e-BIRDS System can be deployed in unlimited areas of interest and throughout the complete life time of the animal. e-BIRDS is a completely unattended system (no need to manually collect data or to charge or replace batteries) for long term data acquisition on birds’ population dynamics. The innovation entails substantial savings in fields’ work for professional ornithologists and establishes the pathway for collaborative science for domestic consumers. Furthermore, it implies no need to manipulate animals beyond the initial tagging (paradigm change from mark-recapture to mark-automatic identification). No similar product currently exists on the market. e-BIRDS contributes to biodiversity halting and early establishment of environmental protection measures. The Objective of the overall innovation project is to scale up, industrialise, validate on a complete value chain and bring to market readiness and maturity the e-BIRDS system for market take-up. The innovation project aims as well to define a sound marketing and commercialization strategy.