Japan's answer to crop-stealing monkeys is GPS

One of the things I find interesting about living in Japan is how often you come across very specific solutions to very specific problems. Take monkeys, for example.

Sanjo City in Niigata has started putting GPS collars on monkeys that have been causing damage to agricultural crops. The locations are then shared on a website called サルポータル ("Monkey Portal"), where you can see where the monkeys have been moving, going back as far as 90 days. There's even a heatmap showing where they tend to hang around. The idea is to help farmers work out where the monkeys are likely to be and plan things like harvesting and deterrent activities accordingly.

It made me wonder what the version of this might look like in other countries!

Having grown up in Australia, I'm very familiar with the idea of animals helping themselves to things that don't belong to them. Kangaroos and wallabies can wander through farmland, cockatoos can descend on crops, and feral pigs can cause some pretty serious agricultural damage. Fruit growers also have flying foxes to contend with.

The difference is that when I picture dealing with Australian wildlife, my first thought isn't really "let's put a GPS collar on one and see where the rest of its friends are going."

Australia does use GPS tracking for wildlife, of course, particularly for research and conservation. But there's something a bit more practical about turning the movements of a group of monkeys into info that farmers can actually use!