WELLS, Maine (AP) _ The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is using tiny transmitters called "nano tags'' to study shorebird migration patterns.
The tags transmit signals picked up by a network of radio towers that span the Northeast coast of the United States and into Canada. Two of the towers are in the Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge in Wells.
Kate O'Brien, a federal biologist who's leading the project in Wells, says it's the technology that makes this study different.
She tells the York County Coast Star that fewer than 5 percent of birds that have bands placed around one leg are ever recaptured, making it inefficient for tracking birds' movement. She says the new technology uses a network of radio towers to track the 30 sandpipers she's tagging this summer.