Newspaper Article 2008 – Bay firm’s tiger collar transmits to the world

Bay firm’s tiger collar transmits to the world

Joe Dawson

A global news story that has run in media outlets from Russia to New Zealand has a distinctly Hawke’s Bay link.

A story about Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin saving a television crew by shooting a charging Amur tiger with tranquilisers in the wilds of the Far East made international news yesterday.

Putin had been on a trip to see how researchers monitored the tigers in the wild, when one escaped and ran at a nearby camera crew.

Having downed the 450kg cat, he then helped researchers measure the tiger’s incisors and placed a transmitter around its neck – a transmitter made in Havelock North by local wildlife tracking company Sirtrack.

Photographs of Putin attaching the transmitter accompanied new stories worldwide.

Sirtrack marketing manager Rowan Calder said the company has been working with Russian researchers studying the tigers, which have recently pounced back from the brink of extinction.

“We’ve supplied them with 15 transmitters, the last of which were sent yesterday, and they’ll be deployed over the next few months.”

Mr Calder said the company was surprised to see one on its products featured in such a widely travelled article.

Sirtrack picked up the Hawke’s Bay Emerging Exporter of the Year award over the weekend.

Photo caption – STRONG SIGNAL: Vladimir Putin puts Sirtrack’s transmitter on the tranquilised tiger.