Embedded Files
Spying on wildlife
Spying on wildlife
Professor William Marshall releasing a ruffed grouse with a small radio transmitter on its back in 1960. Photograph found in the Gordon Gullion papers.
What was once more commonly used for military missiles or satellites, soon became a tracking device initiated by professors at the University of Minnesota's Cloquet Forestry Center to study wildlife.
Early transmitter designed by Minneapolis-Honeywell engineers, 1960. Photograph found in the Gordon Gullion papers.
This matchbox sized tracker was created wtih the help of Honeywell Regulator Company for research founded through a cooperative project with the Minnestoa Department of Conservation, the National Science Foundation and the University of Minnesota, in 1959 (1).
The redesigned, miniature radio-signal transmitter, undated. Photograph found in the Gordon Gullion papers.
It was the goal of Professors William Marshall, Gordon Gullion and Robert Schwab to capture mating habits, life expectancy and various movement through the directional radio anntae when harnessed to wildlife such as porcupine and ruffed grouse (1).
Robert Schwab (left) and Gordon Gullion (right), putting a radio transmitter on a young porcupine, 1960. Photograph found in the Gordon Gullion papers.
Ending in 1966, this project initiated a new method of tracking not yet accomplished before. And it was through this radio-telemetry that they were able to wire tap their way into wildlife.
Find more photographs on this project in the digitized Cloquet Forestry Center records!
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