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By Greg Bartlett

In honor of some of her country’s military veterans – some of her country’s heroes – a bald eagle of North Carolina, named Liberty, was released in a July 4th, 2009 celebration after she had been nursed to health after a serious injury from a fight. State officials wanted to carefully monitor her location after her release. This may not have been possible except for GPS tracking device that was attached to Liberty.

In the World War II years of the 1940’s, development of the United State Air Force’s Global Positioning System (GPS) was begun. By the 1980’s the system had grown enough that it became available to the public. A receiver within a GPS device can communicate with the satellites in the United State Global Positioning System, making it possible to use GPS to create new routes (GPS navigation) and monitor a current route (GPS tracking). Professionals in many different fields, such as boating, medicine, vehicle leasing, conservation, and law enforcement, to name a few, have used GPS navigation to enhance their abilities of perception and to track the location of a given subject.

The GPS tracking of Liberty has been successful. As of July 21, 2009, Liberty had flown about 400 miles north to Virginia, probably somewhere along the Potomac River. Communication has not been possible since then, probably due to distance from cell phone towers through which the GPS device communicates, but Liberty continues to be monitored for more information. GPS tracking has made it possible for North Carolina officials to follow the tracks that Liberty has made in the sky.