Bicycles are a preferred mode of transportation in the Fresno area of California; however, due to an alarming rise in bike theft, many people who use bikes are reconsidering their transportation options. That’s because bikes are stolen on every day in the Fresno area. In fact, some bikes that are stole are disassembled in chop shops and the parts are sold.

Thanks to technology, the bike theft problem in the Fresno area could be controlled in the near future. Enthusiasts are very hopeful that bikes that are worth thousands of dollars will be outfitted with GPS tracking devices in the very near future. These tracking devices will make it easier for the police to locate and recover the bikes that are stolen.

The bike theft problem in and around Fresno has gotten so bad that some thieves aren’t even taken the entire bike. Some thieves are dismantling bikes and taking the parts so that they can sell them for cash. This is bad news for people who make efforts to protect their bikes by locking them up. A thief can take all of the parts of the bike, leaving just the axle that the lock was attached to. Thieves that really want to take an entire bike can cut the lock and walk off with the bike.

Pablo Armigo, an employee at Rubber Soul Cycle, believes that once bikes are outfitted with GPS devices, the crime rate will significantly drop. He is optimistic that the GPS tracking devices will be a huge deterrent, reducing the number of bike thefts by 60 to 80 percent.

Bike experts in the area say that the GPS tracking technology is available, it’s just a matter of getting the technology into the stores so that it can be outfitted on bikes. At the present time, it is not known exactly when GPS technology for bikes will be made available on the open market, but it is believed that developers are very close to finalizing the devices. Some experts are hopeful that bike GPS tracking devices will come out as soon as next year.

The advent of GPS tracking devices could change the outlook of bike theft in the Fresno area; an area that experiences a tremendous amount of bike theft.

GPS tracking technology has been used to save lives, track migration patterns of animals, recover lost items, and help numerous people find their way out of the wilderness or around big cities. And GPS fleet tracking helps companies with fleets improve efficiencies, decrease costs, improve productivity, increase profits, and more.

Now it can check another important thing off its list of accomplishments: helping students study wind patterns and ocean currents.

How is it accomplishing this impressive feat? It’s an interesting story.

Students from Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School in Bradenton, Florida are studying wind patterns and ocean currents from their classrooms thanks to two miniature research vessels called Maurick and Kestrel. Both vessels set sail on September 26, 2017 equipped with a GPS tracker that sends information to the students so they can study these patterns.

It’s all part of the International SeaKeepers Society Discovery Yachts Program. This particular voyage marks the second research voyage for Kestrel who set sale on May 14,2017 near Homestead, Florida before traveling through the Gulf of Mexico and arriving in St. Bernards Parish in Louisiana, located on the eastern side of Louisiana’s delta. This voyage lasted 60 days and 22 hours for Kestrel.

The current voyage, being studied by Bradenton area students made a short pit stop in Ormond Beach, Florida where it was collected by Volusia County Beach Safety who, according to instructions on a sign on the mini vessel, contacted Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School after arranging for the vessel to be collected by Dodi Gaines, the biology department chair for local Seabreeze High School.

Educational Passages, the program behind the Kestrel and Maurick launches has launched more than 70 boats as part of its educational programming. You can track the progress of all research mini vessels launched as part of the program by visiting the Educational Passages website.

Ultimately, none of this would be possible without the use of GPS tracking technology. The more sophisticated and efficient GPS tracking technology becomes, the more benefits, like these, we will experience from watching it in action.

Long battery life, energy conserving methods, and outstanding programming has helped to create educational opportunities for students, study migration patterns of animals, find lost tools, equipment, and people (including at-risk populations such as the elderly, young children, and children who suffer from certain medical conditions like autism).

In Northern Michigan, elk are more than just animals; they are a symbol of the state’s strong history. However, due to decreased numbers in the elk population, the animals and the state’s history are both being threatened.

Thanks to GPS tracking devices and net guns, however, that may not be the case.

In order to better protect the elk, researchers and environmentalists need to have a better understanding of these animals, including their migration patterns. Researchers from the State Department of Natural Resources and Michigan State University will now be able to learn the valuable information regarding these animals and their migration.

With the aid of a helicopter and snowmobiles, researchers were able to put GPS tracking devices on 40 elk as part of an MSU graduate student’s research project. The researchers flew over the elk and used a net gun to temporarily capture the elk. Once the elk were captured, they were fit with GPS collars, which will help the researchers keep track of and study the animals in the Lower Peninsula.

According to DNR wildlife field operations manager, Brian Mastenbrook, one of the primary goals of the project is to assess the effects that recreation has in the core elk range. The GPS tracking devices will allow the researchers to keep tabs on the movements of the elk for the next three years.

Pigeon River County State forest, which is an area that includes 100,000 acres of public land in parts of Cheboygan and Otsego counties, is the area that comprises the core elk range. This area is commonly traversed by mountain bike riders and horseback riders. The data that the GPS tracking devices provide will allow researchers to determine if the movement of the elk is impacted by the activities of humans.

The team of highly qualified researchers who fitted the elk with the GPS tracking collars were able to equip a total of 20 males and 20 females in a period of two days. They were pleased by how quickly they were able to complete their mission of collaring the elk, and they were even more pleased that the animals were not harmed in the process.