Ethics approval and consent to participate
All authors complied with the legislation in the respective countries where fieldwork was conducted. Data from cape vultures and white-backed vultures were collected by K.W. and the team of Vulpro, Plot 121, Boekenhoutkloof Road, Rietfontein 0216, Hartbeespoort, South Africa, and approved by the North West Nature Conservation Department under ethical permission NW 9095/05/2019 and NW 2815/05/2019. Data from wild boar were collected by A.D. and K.M. under ethical permission from Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), Vienna, Austria, project number 864726. Data from pet dogs were collected with consent of the owners. The dogs were accustomed to wearing a harness and the additional mass of the tag was < 0.24% of the body weight. Data from roadside hawks, tayras, king vultures and large-headed capuchins were collected by R.K. and approved by the NC State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, United States, IUCAC 22-294, under SERFOR permit number D000458-2022-MIDAGRI-SERFOR-DGGSPFFS-DGSPFS. Data from roe deer were collected by Jürgen Meyer and the Wildtierzentrum - Pflege und Artenschutz e.V., Saarburg - Wiltingen, Germany, as part of an animal marking to protect individuals from being hunted due to visible ear marking, and for health and habitat monitoring. Data from chamois were collected by Mi.W., approved by the Magistrat Stadt Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria, under project number 01/01/59175/2021/001. Data from domestic goats were collected by Ma.W. and Uschi Müller with consent of the local farmers on the island of Sicily, Italy. The lapwings were collected as eggs from clutches by Martin Boschert on roofs of high buildings in the Upper Rhine Valley, Germany, as part of a species rescue project. The eggs were incubated, and the young raised to fledgling age by the team of the Zoological Garden of Karlsruhe, Germany, with its director Matthias Reinschmidt. Data from the black stork were collected by G.H. and Stefan Laubender. The black stork received medical treatment by Stefan Laubender and was tagged for health monitoring after the release. Data from common noctule bats were collected by D.K.N.D.. Tracking was done under ethical permission of the veterinary services of Kanton Thurgau, Frauenfeld, Switzerland. Starlings were tagged by Morrison Pot with a permit from the Dutch Animal Welfare Body, license number AVD 80100 20186224. Data from African wild dogs were collected by L.V.S. and P.V. and approved by the Endangered Wildlife Trust Ethics Committee, Midrand, South Africa, under ethics clearance number EWTEC2020_012, research agreement number VSCL1700. Data from white and black rhinoceroses, African buffaloes (free-roaming), cheetahs, lions, elephants, giraffes, spotted hyenas, greater kudus, plains zebras, waterbucks, impalas and blue wildebeests were collected by L.V.S., P.V., G.H. and Ma.W. and approved by South African National Parks, Pretoria, South Africa, under permission number WIKM 1668. The capture and treatment of mammals in South Africa was approved by Biodiversity North West under ethical permission NW 22265/08/2020. Data from blackbirds were collected by J.P., N.L. and T.V., approved by the responsible ethic commission and ministry, Regierungspräsidium Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany, under permission number 35-9185.81/G-18/67. Data from African buffalo (enclosure) were collected by W.R. and V.O.E. in conjunction with an experimental infection study conducted with permission from South African National Parks (Project #SS830) and approved by the Yale University IACUC (#2020-20401) and the South African National Parks AUCC (#09-20).
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
The Amazon rainforest datasets are publicly available at Movebank (www.movebank.org [26]) (Movebank study ID: 2122748764). The other datasets generated and or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to ongoing studies and to protect animals from poaching but are almost entirely archived on Movebank (Movebank study IDs: 2155070222, 1409712816, 894254831, 1365616235, 1493312931, 1296030530, 1725249380, 1431850095, 1323242594, 1732512659, 1286005281, 1291290503, 1600771155, 1670322706, 1623175929, 1323163019, 1323668146, 2057805903, 2198940839), and can be made available by the authors upon reasonable request.
Competing interests
J.C.K. was hired by Sigfox Germany in 2022. His work on this publication was conducted prior. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Funding
We acknowledge partial funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's ExcellenceStrategy – EXC 2117 – 422037984, as well as the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant GBMF10539 to Ma.W. and 013744-2021-04-15 to R.K., and the Akademie für Zoo- und Wildtierschutz e.V., Munich, Germany. This IoT project was also partially supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag, as well as the Max Planck Society, the Knobloch Family Foundation and the National Geographic Society. The wild boar project was funded by European Project H2020 VACDIVA–A Safe DIVA vaccine for African swine fever control and eradication, grant agreement number 862874. R.W.H. was supported by research grant 36069 from Villum Fonden for the development of a kinetically powered wildlife tracking unit. Work on African buffalo (enclosure) was funded by the United States National Institutes of Health (grant number NIH 1R01GM131319).
Authors’ contributions
T.A.W. and Ma.W. conceived and developed the study; G.H. and T.A.W. designed and built the tag hardware and software; T.A.W., G.H., N.R., B.V., D.K.N.D. and T.G. designed device housings and attachments. T.A.W., L.V.S., P.V., G.H., J.C.K., D.K.N.D., W.R., J.P., N.L., T.G., R.W.H., K.M., A.D., Mi.W., K.W., W.F., R.K., V.O.E. and Ma.W. collected the data in case studies; T.A.W. and L.V.S. evaluated the data; T.A.W. lead the writing of the manuscript with input from all authors.
Acknowledgments
We thank Uschi Müller for the transnational coordination and organisation of field projects, Jürgen Meyer for the collaboration with the Wildtierzentrum - Pflege und Artenschutz e.V., Saarburg - Wiltingen, Benito and Guiseppe Rosta for their help to collect data from domestic goats on the island of Sicily, Martin Boschert and Matthias Reinschmidt for their help to collect data from lapwings, Stefan Laubender for tagging the black stork, Marius and Franziska Heeb from Fledermausschutz Thurgau, Bischofszell, Switzerland, Kamran and Ylva Safi, Marion Muturi and Lara Keicher for their help to tag common noctule bats, Wilson Giancarlo Inga Díaz, Diego Balbuena and the Los Amigos field station for the tagging work in Peru, Andreas Schmidt for the assistance with blackbird tagging, Morrison Pot for providing photos and collecting data on starlings and Grant Beverly, including the team of Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa, for the strong support to collect data from African wild dogs. Further, we thank our African collaboration partners of the Thornybush Game Reserve, Selati Game Reserve, Balule Game Reserve, Mankwe Wildlife Reserve and Elephants Alive.