A Hawaiian monk seal wears Crittercam

National Geographic's Crittercam is a research tool designed to be worn by wild animals. It combines video and audio recording with collection of environmental data such as depth, temperature, and acceleration.

These compact systems allow scientists to study animal behavior without interference by a human observer. Combining solid data with gripping imagery, Crittercam brings the animal's point of view to the scientific community and a conservation message to worldwide television audiences.

For more than a decade Crittercam has given us insight into the lives of whales, sharks, seals and sea lions, sea turtles, penguins, manatees, and other marine animals. In 2002 the first prototype of a terrestrial Crittercam (designed for land animals) survived its maiden voyage on a wild African lion, opening the door to a whole new world of animal-borne imaging research.

But what did it take to make Crittercam a reality?

Greg Marshall at work on a Crittercam

Crittercam was conceived in 1986 by marine biologist and filmmaker Greg Marshall. A shark approached Greg during a diving trip off Belize, then disappeared into the murk with three quick strokes of its tail. Greg noticed a remora (or sucker fish) clinging to the shark.

As Greg watched the shark disappear, it occurred to him that if he could put a camera in the place of the remora, he could see the shark's behavior unfold without disturbing the shark.

The first Crittercam prototype on a turtle

A struggling graduate student, Greg needed funding for his fledgling project. With small research grants from the American Museum of Natural History and his alma mater—the State University of New York at Stony Brook—he bought one of the first handheld video cameras and fitted it into a fiberglass housing.

Strapped to the back of a captive loggerhead turtle, the awkward prototype, amazingly, didn't seem to bother its host. The turtle just went about her business—the first indication that Crittercam had potential as a research tool.

But true biology happens in the wild. How would free-roaming animals take to Crittercam?

To convince the scientific community that his concept had potential, Greg hit the road. He presented his idea at biological conferences and talked to any behavioral ecologist who would listen.

But this was the late 1980s—compact video technology was brand new. Strapping a camera to a wild animal to study its behavior seemed, to many, too far-out to be taken seriously. Greg raised eyebrows, but no funds.

Frustrated, but undaunted, Greg contacted the David E. Luginbuhl Foundation, which decided to take a risk on Crittercam. Dedicated to the study and conservation of highly endangered leatherback sea turtles—which spend 99.9 percent of their time at sea—the foundation understood the potential of a tool that would allow access to the leatherback's alien world.

After Greg deployed his first field-worthy Crittercam on a nesting leatherback in St. Croix in 1989, the turtle steered her massive body through the crashing surf and into the pitch-black ocean.

The deployment was a sink-or-swim test for Crittercam. When Greg lost the system's radio signal in the early morning hours, the project effectively sank. The nesting female returned to the beach seven days later—without Crittercam.

Crittercam point of view of a penguin targeting an ice fish

It took two more years of beating the drums of the animal-borne imaging concept before Greg happened to meet John Bredar, a visionary producer at National Geographic Television. John immediately recognized Crittercam's potential for "the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge"—the National Geographic Society's long-held mission.

With John's help, Greg secured his first significant development grant from the National Geographic Society.

In early 1992 Greg successfully deployed vastly improved prototypes on free-swimming sharks and sea turtles. And in winter 1992 he joined marine biologist John Francis for the first marine mammal Crittercam deployment, on a Juan Fernandez fur seal. The Crittercam research program was off and running in earnest.

The Crittercam story is just beginning. In the Remote Imaging laboratory at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., Greg and his engineering team, led by Mehdi Bakhtiari, are constantly working to make Crittercam smaller, lighter, and more hydrodynamic.

The smaller the systems, the more species that can be studied with Crittercam. The more powerful the instrument, the more information it can gather to give context to the images. The more refined the attachment methods—suction cup, harness, fin clamp, safe adhesive—the better the chances of deploying and recovering Crittercam.

On the terrestrial Crittercam front, engineers David Rasch and Mehdi Bakhtiari have helped make history by designing new systems for the first ever deployments of Crittercams on wild land animals.