The start of the new year seems like a good occasion to update you on Cat Tracker, our citizen science project that uses GPS technology to study the movement and home ranges of owned domestic cats. We launched in May 2014 in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina and in the last year, our program has grown to include a GPS unit loaning program in Long Island, New York, and parts of Connecticut.

For those outside our GPS loaning zones, we have a DIY option where cat owners can purchase and deploy their own GPS units and then share the data with us. To date, we have DIY sign-ups from all across the US and have now gone global with participants in Canada, Brazil, and parts of Europe!

We put together a Year-in-Review slidesow highlighting Cat Tracker’s big accomplishments in 2014 — Enjoy (especially those accompanying EDM MeowMix beats)!

Cat Tracker 2014 by Slidely Slideshow. Music credit: Meow Mix Song | EDM Cat Remix by Ashworth.

Cat Tracker will continue to push forward into 2015 with several new developments on the horizon including a future New Zealand Cat Tracker sister project! We’ll also be presenting some of our preliminary findings from Cat Tracker at the first ever Citizen Science Association Conference in San Jose, California in February. We also anticipate launching some technological updates like new and improved GPS units capable of real-time tracking!

Interested in knowing where your outdoor cat explores? Check out the Cat Tracker website to learn how you can get involved.