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Mudman

CCTV for Captive Wildlife

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Hi, thanks for the opportunity to post and utilize the expertise and knowledge of the CCTV forum community. I work with a wildlife rehabilitation centre in Nova Scotia. Our goal is to rehabilitate injured or orphaned wildlife and return them to suitable habitat in the wild. One of the key methods to doing this successfully is minimizing the amount of contact the animals have with people. This is especially true for the infant animals as they generally have not learned to be fearful of humans.

 

Once any critical care and medical needs are looked after the remainder is rehabilitation. That means we leave the animal in its enclosure until it is ready to be released. The only time it sees us is when we put in food and clean out the space. One of the issues we have is monitoring the animals while they are alone. It's a catch 22 of leaving them be but also needing to see how they are progressing.

 

The obvious solution is some kind of CCTV installation. We have used some basic cameras in the past, some wired, some IP ones and webcams. None really seem to be ideal for the job. I'm looking for advice on brands that will fit our niche requirements.

 

The lenses need to be wide angle becasue the space they will be in is quite small, 8'x8'x8' or 6'x6'x6' usually. Would like night vision capable, is that the same as IR? Would prefer wireless as the enclosures are up to 300' from the house and wifi network. A means to stream any of the cameras to the web (people love baby bird cams etc..) which would be good for promoting our centre. The ability to record the input to use for promotional videos and playback to monitor the animals over time.

 

Would forum members have suggested systems that would fit these criteria?

Thanks in advance

Murdo (chair of the Cobequid Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre cwrc.net)

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My suggestion to keep it low cost is to use analog based PTZ cameras on a web enabled DVR. This would allow for the audience to manipulate the camera and zoom in on the animal.

 

PM me and I will gladly help you over the phone. I got nothing better to do this weekend.

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