Getting Rid of Gooneys

Birds, fish and other migratory creatures have long been the envy of the U.S. Navy, which would like to learn to navigate with their casual accuracy. In its latest effort to understand animal travel tricks, the Office of Naval Research has been loading homing pigeons with tiny, transistorized radio transmitters designed by American Electronic Laboratories, Inc. of Philadelphia. Despite four batteries and a 40-in. trailing antenna, each transmitter weighs only 2 1/2 oz. and does not overburden an airworthy pigeon. For 20 hours, it sends out a signal that can be picked up by directional receivers tracking the pigeon to its home loft.

So far, the faint chirp of the airborne radio has been followed for only 25 miles, and the Navy has added little to its pigeon lore. But seagoing scientists have far more ambitious experiments in mind. Porpoises, another animal uncannily clever at navigation, will be fitted with larger transmitters in the hope of learning how the aquatic mammals set their course. Eventually, the Navy hopes, its little radios will signal defeat for an ancient enemy: the albatrosses (known as gooney birds) that nest by the thousands on Midway Island and make its runways dangerous for aircraft. Naval experts on bird migration suspect that gooney birds navigate to their breeding island by following the earth's magnetic field. If the secrets of the gooneys' system can be uncovered by radio, the Navy may be able to shoo the birds magnetically away from Midway.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.