GPS for Cottontail Rabbit

Lightweight GPS collars specifically designed for rabbits

The key to making GPS collars work on rabbits is to keep the collar as round as possible so that it fits snugly against the rabbits neck preventing them from chewing on the collar. If this step is overlooked the collar won’t be on the rabbit for very long. In addition, it is paramount that the collars have very good GPS antennas so that the opportunity to acquire GPS satellite signals is optimized. We have you covered on both counts.

Cottontail rabbits and GPS tracking devices were never meant to work in conjunction with each other and rabbit behavior presents some distinct difficulty when it comes to GPS and battery life. Telemetry Solutions has overcome this obstacle with the introduction of our Smart GPS option.

GPS for Cottontail Rabbit-How it works

Telemetry Solutions has made more rabbit GPS collars than any other telemetry manufacturer and we have the perfect product for your rabbit study. Firstly, our GPS collar not only allows you to program GPS positioning times but also it is smart enough to know when it’s not likely that a location attempt will be successful. Because your collar will have a very small battery it is important that you utilize this Smart GPS feature to maximize positioning from the small battery available.

In order to set up your collars for field use you will program GPS positioning times and the length of time the GPS receiver is allowed to remain on to acquire a signal. You will also program the amount of time that the receiver will remain on after a signal is acquired. This setting is very important because if you set it too high it will use a lot more battery power but if you set it too low your GPS positions won’t be as precise as they can be. We are here to support you in learning how to program these settings.

You should be sure to order the bi-directional download feature as well so that you can track the collars’ VHF beacon and then activate a remote data download. In this way you will have your data without having to recover the collar. With rabbits the collar could end up underground in a burrow and without that remote data download feature your data will be lost with the collar.

Smart GPS will allow you to program the GPS collar to be off when the rabbit is not moving. In that way you won’t waste battery life on GPS positioning attempts that you had scheduled but that would occur when the rabbit is hunkered down in a place where a position attempt is not likely to be successful. You can learn more about this feature by clicking on the link to ‘avoid missed fixes’ in the column to the left.