When a bird is outfitted with a backpack-mounted telemetry transmitter, the harness straps can be joined and adjusted either at the transmitter on the bird's back or where they cross over the bird's sternum. If the harness straps (I use 6.4-mm Teflon ribbon on Ospreys [Pandion haliaetus]) are stitched together over the sternum, the fitting process is usually managed with a number of hemostats securing the straps prior to the stitching. This is cumbersome and often frustratingly complex, because adjusting one of the four straps requires releasing one or more of the hemostats, which can in turn let one or more of the other straps slip out of position.
I have developed a cardboard template that secures all four straps and permits easy adjustment of the tension in the straps prior to stitching. The template for Ospreys, cut from single-ply (not corrugated) 2-mm thick cardboard, is roughly doughnut-shaped,...