Scottish seals are sending out an SMS

NEWS Seals in Scotland are texting messages to mobile phones as part of an experiment that is expected to take off in other parts of the world. Scientists at St Andrews University have started attaching mobile phone transmitters to Grey Seal pups in the Firth of Forth. Mobile phone masts along the coast then receive data on each seals' location which, is sent as an SMS text message to mobile phones at the Sea Mammal Research Unit back at the university. The project hopes to establish what factors affect a seal's chances of survival in its formative months. Scientists at the university intend to develop a second phase of tagging that will involve global positioning system technology so the depth of seals' dives can also be recorded. In the future the scientist will create tags that can store data on the seals' backs for weeks before it is transmitted back to the university. The phone tags will fall off the pups when their coats moult after a few months.