Wildlife Acoustics Announces its Ultrasonic Monitoring System for Bats
Poster: SySAdmin
Posted on April 7, 2010 at 12:07:01 PM
Wildlife Acoustics Announces its Ultrasonic Monitoring System for Bats
New technology reduces costs for wind farm pre-construction bat surveys and other applications
CONCORD, Mass., April 7 -- Wildlife Acoustics, the leading supplier of acoustic monitoring systems for endangered and threatened wildlife species around the world, announces breakthrough technology for monitoring bats.
The SM2 Terrestrial Ultrasonic Package starting at US$849 is a weatherproof, low-power two-channel ultrasonic recorder capable of continuous unattended monitoring and recording of bat echolocation calls for long periods of time. Each channel has independent triggers, filters and gain settings and the two channels allow bats to be recorded on two different microphones up to 800 feet apart. Alternatively, one microphone can be used to monitor bat activity while another simultaneously records birds, frogs, and other non-ultrasonic sounds.
A typical configuration for wind farm pre-construction surveys includes one ultrasonic microphone near ground level and another mounted at nacelle height at the end of a long cable for each tower. The SM2 allows monitoring in this configuration with the benefit of only one recorder to mount and power.
Another important application for the SM2 recording system is to monitor the effects of white nose syndrome, a fungus killing bats at alarming rates.
"Our SM2 Ultrasonic recording system is only one quarter of the cost per channel of any other bat detector on the market today," said Ian Agranat, President and CEO of Wildlife Acoustics. "In addition, we are the only recorder that is weatherproof out-of-the-box."
Post-processing "Wac2Wav" software available from Wildlife Acoustics at no charge converts recordings made by the SM2 to either standard .WAV files or legacy zero-crossing files while removing false triggers caused by background noise.
"Bat researchers can continue to use the protocols, methodologies, and analysis tools familiar to them imposed by the limitations of legacy technologies such as zero-crossing analysis and time expansion while retaining the original full-spectrum recordings for more detailed analysis," continued Agranat. "Legacy solutions are many times more expensive and yet are not capable of detecting as many bats because they lack omni-directional microphones and are not capable of continuous full-spectrum recording."
About Wildlife Acoustics, Inc.
A wildly innovative company: Wildlife Acoustics, Inc., a privately held Massachusetts corporation, is the leading provider of bio-acoustic monitoring technology for scientists, researchers, and government agencies worldwide since 2003.
http://www.wildlifeacoustics.com
Source: Wildlife Acoustics, Inc.
CONTACT: Ian Agranat, Wildlife Acoustics, Inc., +1-978-369-5225
Web Site: http://www.wildlifeacoustics.com/
New technology reduces costs for wind farm pre-construction bat surveys and other applications
CONCORD, Mass., April 7 -- Wildlife Acoustics, the leading supplier of acoustic monitoring systems for endangered and threatened wildlife species around the world, announces breakthrough technology for monitoring bats.
The SM2 Terrestrial Ultrasonic Package starting at US$849 is a weatherproof, low-power two-channel ultrasonic recorder capable of continuous unattended monitoring and recording of bat echolocation calls for long periods of time. Each channel has independent triggers, filters and gain settings and the two channels allow bats to be recorded on two different microphones up to 800 feet apart. Alternatively, one microphone can be used to monitor bat activity while another simultaneously records birds, frogs, and other non-ultrasonic sounds.
A typical configuration for wind farm pre-construction surveys includes one ultrasonic microphone near ground level and another mounted at nacelle height at the end of a long cable for each tower. The SM2 allows monitoring in this configuration with the benefit of only one recorder to mount and power.
Another important application for the SM2 recording system is to monitor the effects of white nose syndrome, a fungus killing bats at alarming rates.
"Our SM2 Ultrasonic recording system is only one quarter of the cost per channel of any other bat detector on the market today," said Ian Agranat, President and CEO of Wildlife Acoustics. "In addition, we are the only recorder that is weatherproof out-of-the-box."
Post-processing "Wac2Wav" software available from Wildlife Acoustics at no charge converts recordings made by the SM2 to either standard .WAV files or legacy zero-crossing files while removing false triggers caused by background noise.
"Bat researchers can continue to use the protocols, methodologies, and analysis tools familiar to them imposed by the limitations of legacy technologies such as zero-crossing analysis and time expansion while retaining the original full-spectrum recordings for more detailed analysis," continued Agranat. "Legacy solutions are many times more expensive and yet are not capable of detecting as many bats because they lack omni-directional microphones and are not capable of continuous full-spectrum recording."
About Wildlife Acoustics, Inc.
A wildly innovative company: Wildlife Acoustics, Inc., a privately held Massachusetts corporation, is the leading provider of bio-acoustic monitoring technology for scientists, researchers, and government agencies worldwide since 2003.
http://www.wildlifeacoustics.com
Source: Wildlife Acoustics, Inc.
CONTACT: Ian Agranat, Wildlife Acoustics, Inc., +1-978-369-5225
Web Site: http://www.wildlifeacoustics.com/