Dear colleagues,
Field biologists regularly leave scientific equipment unattended in the
field for data collection. We conduct a study on vandalism and theft of
such equipment, and particularly how it can be reduced. We are therefore
interested in learning if and how often such incidences do happen.
We would be pleased to hear from researchers working in any area of
biology and using any kind of unattended equipment in the field, e.g.,
animal traps and nets, camera traps, autonomous recording devices, nest
boxes, sap sampling systems, mesocosms, etc. (Being an animal ecologist,
I do not know many systems used for plant/bacteria/fungi/… research and
would very much like to learn about these, too.)
More specifically, we would like to learn about the following questions:
1) Incidences: Had any of your equipment been damaged or stolen? How
many occurrences did you experience, of how many deployed equipment
units, over which period? (We also would like to hear from you if this
never happened to your equipment, despite the possibility for vandalism
and theft.)
2) Equipment and Protection: What kind of equipment did you use, where
was it placed in the field, how was it secured, hidden or otherwise
protected?
3) Harm: What kind of damage, financially, scientifically and otherwise,
did this cause to you?
4) Reasons: Do you have any thoughts about why these incidences happened?
We would appreciate your time and help a lot.
Thank you very much and best regards,
Holger Goerlitz
[email protected]
+49 8157 932-372
Sensory Ecology Group
Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
Seewiesen, Germany
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Dr. Holger R. Goerlitz
Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
Sensory Ecology Group
Eberhard-Gwinner-Strasse
82319 Seewiesen
Germany
phone: +49 (0)8157 932-372
fax: +49 (0)8157 932-344
[email protected]
http://www.orn.mpg.de/129793/ERC_interBat
