Fast forward to 2023, and now Utah DWR officials can get real-time location data for thousands of animals without leaving their office. What’s more, they can overlay today’s location data with up to 20 years of historical information to make data-driven decisions to improve wildlife habitat and populations using the state’s Wildlife Tracker application, running on Google Cloud. With this application, DWR can better gauge how wildlife interacts with the landscape over time, identify new migration routes, assess areas that need habitat improvements, or determine where to put fences or crossing structures to keep animals from crossing roads in areas with high-collision risks. These alerts on the movements of animals over time are also enabling real-time situational analysis, such as how wildfires or drought impact populations and migration patterns.
