What Wild Hearts Reveal
ACCESSWIRE•09/11/2026•15:00 ET
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Key Highlights
- ➤Medtronic monitors supported 62 new wildlife implants across nine species in the past year
- ➤Wildlife monitoring now covers 28 species, including recently added caimans
- ➤LINQ monitors track animal heart rates and heart-rate variability to measure stress
- ➤Research led by Medtronic’s Tim Laske aims to improve wildlife management and human-heart understanding
Expert Statements
Tim Laske, Vice president of research for Cardiac Ablation Solutions at Medtronic
“Understanding the normal states for animals is incredibly important to not only better manage them in the wild, but to know what type of conditions would be ideal for adaptation”
Tim Laske, Vice president of research for Cardiac Ablation Solutions at Medtronic
“For captive animals, this helps us to understand how to give them the best quality of life.”
Tim Laske, Vice president of research for Cardiac Ablation Solutions at Medtronic
“This data, in addition to helping us understand how to better manage these species, provides knowledge, and a curiosity for us as humans to understand what's happening with our wild, co-habitants on this planet”
Tim Laske, Vice president of research for Cardiac Ablation Solutions at Medtronic
“What are their lives like? What's normal, and what isn't? The answers don't just reshape how scientists care for animals, they deepen our understanding of the heart itself”
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / November 9, 2026 / On a winter day in northern Minnesota, a black bear does something that would terrify a human cardiologist: she settles into hibernation.
Her breathing slows, her body cools, and then, for stretches long enough to feel like silence, her heart nearly stops. Twenty seconds in between heartbeats. Thirty.
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