B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest is one of the most unique remaining pockets of biodiversity on the planet and now a local conservation group is trying to raise money to install more live cameras to observe the wildlife in its natural habitat.
Conservationists with Pacific Wild Alliance want to install a night-vision camera to observe nocturnal wildlife and an underwater camera that would allow to watch salmon spawning and sea lions feeding.
The group already has two daytime live cameras of a river system and an off-shore rock installed in the area.
Pacific Wild director Ian McAllister says they get people from all over the world tuning in to watch.
“It is hard to appreciate something you can’t see,” says McAllister, who hopes getting more live cameras will translate into increased public awareness around the threats facing the Great Bear Rainforest, such as increasing tanker traffic and pipeline proposals.
A big part of getting more eyeballs on the live feeds is crowd-sourcing.
McAllister says “citizen science” is something they rely on a lot.
“If we expand thermal imaging and run the cameras 24 hours a day, we just don’t have the resources to be able to monitor the cameras, so we’ve been really relying on people to do that. And then with the social media, we’ve been getting feedback on what the wolves are doing or what the sea lions are doing. It’s been a really great way to engage people from around the world.”
The cameras are made to be as non-invasive as possible for a real-time insight into the lives of Spirit bears, coastal wolves and other unique species roaming the Great Bear Rainforest.
“There are so many things happening in these wild river systems and offshore islands that nobody has been able to see, partly because of logistics, but also because this technology has not existed before.”
One of the unique behaviours that the group was able to observe through existing cams is wolf pups feeding on salmon.
“These are really young pups that are just five-months-old, and they are successfully catching countless salmon each day. This is quite unique in the world of wolves, because at that age normally the adults still have to provide for the pups.”
McAllister says they have also been experimenting with audio streams, which are popular with their viewers.
“We’re hearing from people who are beaming the audio on their computers at work all day, so they can listen to the seagulls and eagles. We’ve heard from offices in Washington, DC that have been putting it on their main speakers, so the entire office can listen to the little chirps and twitters of birds in the Great Bear Rainforest.”
Pacific Wild has launched an Indiegogo campaign, trying to raise $28,000 for the project.
$775 has been raised so far, with 30 days left to go in the campaign.
Go here to see the campaign page.
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