One of the most famous Red Book Ladoga seals — the male Kroshik, who recently returned to the wild after 10 years in a rehabilitation center — will disappear from radars starting November 1. This was announced by the Friends of the Baltic Seal Foundation. The satellite system operator, the French company Argos 1, is ceasing service for subscriber trackers in Russia. The system shutdown is very bad news for Russian researchers — zoologists, the foundation emphasized.
The organization noted that one of their long-time wards — the Baltic seal Malyshka Khita, released into the wild back in 2009 — was one of the first marine mammals in Russia with an Argos transmitter.
There is a small analogue, small specifically for our purposes of tracking animal movements, it is the Iridium system, but it has fewer satellites for such tasks. The Argos system has been virtually a monopolist and leader in this field for more than 40 years. Let's say, for Russian scientists, Russian researchers who are engaged in studying marine mammals, among others, it will be necessary to postpone the study of animal movements using satellite tags for some time.
On October 15, the Lake Baikal Foundation and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives agreed to develop Russia's own national system for satellite monitoring of animals.
The decision was made due to the cessation of Argos's operations. Yandex Cloud announced its readiness to become a technological partner of the project — to assist with data processing and forecasting animal movements on a non-commercial basis.