Anonymous survey — device failures in bird biologging studies (10–30 min)

General
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Dear colleagues,

You are invited to complete a short anonymous survey about device failures in bird biologger deployments, which you can access at this link. The goal is to document real-world failure rates and common causes to help practitioners plan robust, ethical studies. This study is being led by a collaborative research group in Canada affiliated with Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. Responses will be aggregated for a peer-reviewed publication.

We are interested in all experiences with device failure, including projects where a single device failed to work as expected, to those where all devices failed. Reports of complete or widespread failures are especially valuable, as these outcomes are rarely documented, but please share any relevant projects involving device failures.

Responses are anonymous, aggregated, and used only for research/publication.

Estimated time: 10–30 minutes.

Survey deadline: Responses accepted within the next 8 weeks.

Thank you — sharing your experience will help refine best practices in study design and reporting across the community. Please forward this email to others who may have experiences to share as well. If you have questions regarding the survey, please email failedbiologgingdevices@gmail.com

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Hello again Motus community,

To complement the presentation of the aggregated results of the practitioner survey in a publication, we’re now soliciting more detailed case studies to illustrate the ethical, financial, and scientific implications of device failure in applied research contexts. We would very much like to include a case study from a terrestrial VHF deployment experience, preferably from a situation with high rates of device failure. If you are interested in sharing your experience, we are looking to gather standardized information including: study location, species, device type (but not manufacturer, as our intent is not to attribute failure to specific device manufacturers or models), deployment scale, attachment method, description of the failure and its cause (if known), how the failure was detected, and the resulting impacts on data collection, project costs, field logistics, and animal welfare. Please reach out to me at sarahegutowsky@gmail.com or failedbiologgingdevices@gmail.com.

Thanks,

Sarah Gutowsky