Internet of animals: the scientific dream of total control of nature

Chip and monitor hundreds of thousands of wild animals by satellite in real time is the crazy project that several scientific institutions have been pursuing for several years now. Under the pretext of wanting to better know and protect it, scientists are constantly developing new technologies in order to optimize the control and exploitation of wild nature.

Converting animals into data, an international scientific race

Attaching fleas to wild animals is nothing new — since the 1960s, biologists have used this practice to observe animals from a distance. As early as the 1980s, Argos beacons, invented by French and American scientists, were monitored by satellites in the oceans and on large animals.

Their German competitor ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) was for its part born from the meeting between the biologist Martin Wikelski and the American engineer George Swenson. The latter was an astronomer who worked for the American Army during the Cold War and then for NASA. He pointed out to Martin Wikelski that naturalists were stupid, that they saw too small, and that if they really wanted to know everything about migratory animals, they would have to find a way to observe them all at once and continuously.^[1]. The main innovations of ICARUS are therefore the miniaturization of beacons, their production at low cost as well as the diversification of the data transmitted, allowing global and constant monitoring of a much larger animal population.

In the making for twenty years, ICARUS is financed to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by the German Space Agency and supported by an international consortium of biologists, engineers and scientists. France was a partner in this research. For example, the Kivi Kuaka project, which aimed to monitor migratory birds.

Since the antenna that receives the data emitted by the hundred thousand beacons placed on animals for ICARUS is located on the Russian part of the international space station, the project has been stopped since the intensification of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. In the meantime, their French competitor CLS (for Collecte Localisation Satellites), a subsidiary of CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales) and operators of the Argos beacons mentioned above, have also invested in the internet of animals. They presented a similar project at the 2021 World Conservation Congress.^[2]. For their part, they are proud to have attached 300,000 ARGOS chips to animals and to have their own nano-satellite surveillance system dedicated to the Internet of animals and objects, Kinéis. In Israel, the ATLAS project also pursues the same goals.^[3].

Many arguments are put forward by scientists to justify the chipping of hundreds of thousands of wild animals. First, unravel the last secrets that wildlife could still hold: what migratory routes do such birds use, where do such fish reproduce, where which species hibernate, or even, through the development of artificial intelligence, even when do they “sleep, run, eat, or are in a state of stress”^[4]. Second, optimize protection measures for animal species that are still resisting the relentless blows that industrial civilization has dealt them for decades. By constantly tracking and analyzing them, biologists will be able to come to the aid of animals threatened by intensive fishing and poaching, react more quickly if they are threatened by climate disasters, and have a say in the deliberations prior to the establishment of commercial transport routes or the implementation of large-scale artificialization projects. Clearly, these technologies finally make it possible to “manage”, in a much more optimal way than by parking them in protected natural reserves, the last animals that are still wild and free on the planet. In the end, it is a question of assimilating and processing them in the manner of accounting data, such as a stock of domestic or livestock animals.

The benefits for the techno-industrial system are also multiple: with the Internet of Animals, the system will be able to predict natural disasters that animals perceive earlier than humans, or even avoid new pandemics, thanks to the study of the health of wild animals in real time.

The most hypocritical argument, undoubtedly, put forward by Martin Wikelski and the famous YouTuber popularizer Dirty Biology^[5], is that such technologies will make it possible to accelerate the ecological and environmental awareness of the population. We are in fact sold to us an “internet of animals”, applications^[6] allowing you to follow your favorite animal in real time — such as the bird fleeced by the YouTuber mentioned above, baptized during a survey “birdy biology” by his followers. While big numbers don't move people, these tracking applications would make it possible to create emotional bonds with individualized animals and thus promote a more massive environmental commitment. He concludes with the absurd statement that “5G, GPS, processors and satellites bring us closer to the biosphere than they take us away from it.” CNES is using this same argument to win children over to the cause of technological development, by offering comprehensive educational kits to teachers on satellite animal monitoring. After the ecotourism scam, here is the safari from your couch! Once again, scientists are using greenwashing and using animals and nature as pretexts to carry out their project of absolute control of living beings.

Wild animals as an alibi

Regardless of the size, weight of the sensor and the way in which it works, animals will always have to be captured and put to sleep in order to attach such devices to them, operations that are very stressful and sometimes fatal for their subjects. Just look at the photos that CNES highlights on its site^[7], the story of the capture and chipping of a cuckoo by Sonia Shah^[8] or the Dirty Biology video (in which hunting and capturing birds is presented as a fun game) to realize that animal welfare is far from being at the center of scientific concerns. As stated in this LFDA article:” no technique can be absolutely and completely harmless^[9].” These fleas, stuck on animals or put on collars, can be very annoying for animals.^[10]. For example, cases have been observed where parasites developed under the collars. They can also expose their wearer to the risk of strangulation. The weight and size of the device, despite all the precautions taken and technical prowess, necessarily cause discomfort in the long term.

Finally, it should be noted that animal behavior could be greatly modified by the operation of such devices. In fact, ARGOS beacons emit electromagnetic waves every 90 to 200 seconds. Behavioral changes linked to waves have already been observed, even giving rise to a public debate in the Senate in 2021.^[11]. Since telecommunications lobbies are among the most powerful in the world, we suspect that serious studies on the health impacts of airwaves are not ready to see the light of day. However, we know that they can have harmful effects on sleep, fertility and cognitive performance. Glued to animals and emitting signals so regularly, such devices could even cause stress, or even speed up the heart rate.

It may therefore seem absurd to affix to an animal a device capable of modifying its behavior when the primary objective of the approach is to observe and study its behavior. One could take solace in saying that at least animals only lug their snitches around for a fixed period of time. The discomfort caused by the device would therefore only be temporary and the effects of electromagnetic waves are, in the current state of knowledge, reversible.

However, satellite observation of wild animals and advances in telecommunications allow scientists to observe animals in real time from their computers. They no longer have to retrieve the beacons to study the data or to stay in a perimeter close to the animals they want to observe: “So, researchers can follow the movement of the animals... from their desk^[12] ! “In fact, it is to the “debunkage” of this distinction between field naturalists and office scientists that the tech-savvy popularizer Dirty Biology devotes the core of his video. Indeed, according to him, the dualism opposing technology and nature is a hackneyed cliché, the scientists who set up the internet of animals are naturalists in love with the wild world. New technologies would be developed in the interests of wildlife...

However, such progress leads to much more concrete changes than these debates about the work of biologists and the dualism of nature and culture. It is well understood that the new technologies of ICARUS and CLS allow scientists to receive data continuously, simultaneously and without moving. After the installation, all that is left is to analyze and process the information. Why, in this case, bother to go and remove the beacons scattered in the four corners of the globe? The animals will therefore be bothered by their snitch and exposed to its waves until they die. Moreover, there is no need to look for what happens to the ARGOS or ICARUS beacons at that moment: all communication media and articles seem to ignore this crucial aspect under the carpet. They will therefore be able to begin their long decomposition in these famous shrines, sacred places hitherto unknown and inaccessible to humans, which they will have allowed him to discover.

The hypocrisy of scientists does not end there. They have the audacity to claim that ICARUS and Argos fleas could help fight poaching and overfishing. Using artificial intelligence algorithms, we could detect unusual animal movements and predict the presence of hunters with 86% accuracy. In the same way, albatrosses have been transformed into sentries to identify illegal fishing boats.

This is to omit that one of the aspects of these projects is to offer applications accessible to the public for tracking wild animals: why should hunters and fishermen deprive themselves of installing these applications? How can such uses be regulated? How can you make sure that data is not hacked? “Cyber poaching” is already a reality^[13] and these projects facilitate the work of illegal hunters more than they combat them.

We can therefore see that the arguments in favor of the defense of wild animals are at best an automystification of scientists, at worst hypocrisy. Regardless of the size or weight of the sensors, animals are primarily considered as helpers, indicators. Supporters of the technological system could not bear the fact that beings could freely roam the Earth without producing information and data.

Total control of the biosphere and all forms of life as the true objective of the Internet of Animals

It is not actually for animals that Martin Wikelski or CLS act. Other arguments are put forward, much more anthropocentric and revealing about the real objectives of these companies:

“The discoveries made possible by ICARUS, while impossible to predict, could have diffuse and far-reaching implications. Discoveries that shed light on the factors that determine animal movement could help transform ecology, a field that traditionally describes the natural world and its inhabitants, into a field that can make predictions. Every year, billions of dollars depend on how wildlife moves and is distributed across the landscape, on migrations that affect the abundance of fish we get from the sea, on the virulence of the pathogens we encounter, on the predators that stalk our livestock, and on the birds and flowers that adorn our landscapes. But no one knows exactly when bats will arrive in a given forest, why some butterflies change their range and others don't, whether the elephants that run screaming in the forests have sensed the impending natural disaster, or why some swallows return to their summer nests and others don't.^[14].”

Ecology could become a lucrative sector generating billions, what progress! Why just observe wild animals when you can turn them into commodities using technology? Why not take advantage of all their otherwise useless trips? Beyond the biological discoveries that these devices make it possible to make, the idea is above all to transform the world into Smart Planet. The data produced by these new sentinels will make it possible to increase technological control of the world in order to optimize its management. A health check, first of all:

“But — and this is the main innovation of this technology — the miniature sensor weighing between three and four grams does not only communicate the position of the animal. It can transmit data on its environment, such as temperature or humidity, or even on its health, which is particularly instructive for mammals such as fruit bats, whose populations are already traced by ICARUS. The same bats that were talked about during the pandemic^[15]...”

A completely sanitized world, without unexpected events, where the smallest event will be calculated, analyzed, recorded, this is the real project of all these scientists. Under the guise of wanting to avoid disasters, the system extends its liberticidal control to all forms of life.

The Internet of Animals could also make it possible to prevent natural disasters more effectively, which could be “useful” as the world prepares to experience more than one natural disaster per day.^[16].” Thus, it is better to cure than to prevent: the crazy scientific advances that have marked the last two centuries are now recognized as the main causes of climate change and the massive destruction of biodiversity. However, supporters of such projects continue to propose ultra-complex and energy-intensive technological solutions to overcome problems that technology has created: here we see the limits of technosolutionism. In no way do these scientists pursue such laudable goals as the protection of the population against pandemics, natural disasters, or animals against the multiple dangers that threaten them from all sides; they simply continue their professional activities, alternative activities that have no other aim than to strengthen the techno-industrial system. All the arguments they put forward only serve to justify launching more satellites into space.^[17] and the deployment of surveillance technologies across the globe. In addition to considering animals as commercial objects, they use them as an alibi to justify their destructive activities.

The infrastructures allowing the production and operation of satellites and these small beacons at low cost (sold 990 euros per person) on the Syrlinks site^[18]) are the main cause of the destruction of wildlife. Extractivism and international transport routes provide the materials and energy essential for the development of an inept project such as the Internet of Animals.

The war on wildlife and the unlimited exploitation of resources and territories are at the core of the modern industrial world. They are therefore intrinsically incompatible with the protection of fauna and flora. If we want to renew healthy relationships with animals, it will probably not be through tracking and sponsorship applications, satellites or GPS chips stuck on them. If the system for producing and operating such technologies continues, there will simply be no animals left to protect.

All of these technologies are aimed at suppressing privacy. At present, there are many media that offer buying guides that compare fleas for pets. We are sold applications to sponsor wild animals. CNES is promoting its beacons in schools and we recently saw the drifts to which devices such as Airtags could give rise.

Under the guise of wanting to raise awareness about environmental issues, supporters of the technological system are raising massive funds.^[19] to fill the orbit with satellites and crisscross the planet. The aim is to change all reality into data, the final objective of big data; like a web covering the entire world, it will no longer be possible, neither for humans nor for any living being, to escape satellite control. The technological system, colonizing in essence, seeks to exploit what it has not yet destroyed and to further strengthen its hold on the biosphere.

However, let us recognize a certain relevance to the instigators of these projects in choosing their names: the myth of Icarus, in which a man builds false wings out of wax that melt as he approaches the sun, could be interpreted as a warning against the unbridled use of science and technology. As for Argos, the giant with a hundred eyes in Greek mythology, he ended up beheaded by Hermès who came to free the prisoner he was guarding. Every day, a growing challenge is organized to free the Earth and its inhabitants from the grip of techno-totalitarianism.