Photo courtesy of Doug Hajicek |
Live Black
Bear Den Webcam
Press Release:
January 8, 2010, PixController, Inc.
For the first time ever
the entire
world will have access to a streaming live webcam feed from inside
the den of a wild hibernating female black bear named Lily. Located
near Ely, MN, researchers say there is a better than average chance
she will give birth to 1-pound cubs around mid Jan. The birth of
bear cubs has never been filmed in the wild. Film/video producer
Doug Hajicek, in conjunction with the North American Bear Center and
PixController, Inc., is embarking on this second attempt to do it.
Dr Lynn Rogers bear biologist and Doug Hajicek a History Channel
producer will be teaming up for the den camera installation and will
maintain it throughout the winter of 2010. Bill Powers of
PixController Inc. designed the custom webcam streaming video and
audio technology. Powers is a long-time collaborator on Hajicek’s
History Channel series
designed one of the "25 Most Interesting Webcams" for 2007 awarded
by EarthCam.
In an attempt to film it in 1999, no cubs were born. That bear,
Whiteheart, captured the imagination and hearts of people everywhere
through a web feed on Discovery.com and through a documentary “The
Man Who Walks With Bears,” on Animal Planet. With every passing day,
web viewers and researchers watched with increasing anticipation
until it was evident the time for giving birth had passed.
The Whiteheart project was the first use a live
webcam as a primary research tool. Now, with improvements in
technology from Bill Powers of PixController, Inc., Hajicek’s team,
along with biologists Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield from the North
American Bear Center, are eager to “turn on the new
Lily web-cam.” Viewers, including the researchers, will be able
to witness Lily’s undisturbed activities 24/7. The camera will
broadcast a live video feed in infra-red (black & white) in order
not to disturb the bears. A sound MIC has also been installed in the
den site.
A research cabin, which is about 150 yards from the black bear den
site, streams the audio and video feed via an Internet connection to
WildEarth.TV out of South Africa.
WildEarth.TV was founded in 2006 by
Emily and Graham Wallington with a vision to create a LIVE wildlife
webcam channel that simultaneously broadcast on the Internet.
Drawing from their experience, Rogers and Hajicek note that “it’s
astounding how active hibernating bears are in their dens.” Before a
den cam allowed them to watch an undisturbed bear, they thought
hibernating bears simply slept.
Lily is the 2-year-old daughter from June’s second litter. June’s
will turn 9 in the middle of January. June’s mother Shadow will
turn 20 at the same time. Shadow, the grandmother of Lily, is the
matriarch of the bear clan that lives in this area. Bears seldom use
the same den two years in a row. Lily is part of a long-term study
of black bear ecology and behavior being conducted by the North
American Bear Center. Lily is still within her mother’s territory,
so if she has cubs it will be interesting to see how everything
works out after the bears emerge from their dens in April. The den
is near Ely in northeastern Minnesota, USA, less than 30 miles from
the Canadian border
Hajicek has been pioneering the use of wildlife cams since 1999,
being the first to videotape a giant squid. To get that shot,
Hajicek used another squid as a “Trojan camera carrier” to carry his
camera down to the inky abyss. Hajicek has placed cameras on rats,
wild hogs, wild dogs, sharks, beaver houses, and below Lake
Superior, giving people peeks into worlds seldom seen.
PixController, Inc based out of
Murrysville, PA, is a dynamic, high-technology company that designs
and manufactures state-of-the-art covert remote surveillance
systems. Powers designed the first ever use of remote
motion-activated wireless video cameras. This design enabled webcams
to be installed in remote areas powered by batteries and charged by
solar panels.
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Phone: 724-733-0970 
