Educating the world about remote wildlife through livestream
The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales partnered with Dragon WiFi to protect and promote seabird populations on Skomer Island. They created an innovative solution using Axis hardware to overcome the challenges posed by the island's remote location, livestreaming the island and its wildlife to the screens of people across the world.
Located off the coast of Pembrokeshire, the 720-acre island of Skomer is a National Nature Reserve designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Area. “It’s one of the most important seabird islands in the world,” explains Grace Hunt, Communications Officer for The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales (WTSWW), custodian of over 100 reserves in Wales. “Skomer Island is home to more than 41,000 puffins and the largest colony of Manx shearwaters in the world – about 350,000 breeding pairs. It’s an amazing place. And when the previous cameras on the island went down, there was huge demand to bring them back.”
“There’d been a project to monitor Skomer Island for years,” says Guy Farley, Managing Director of systems integrator Dragon WiFi. “When we first got involved, in around 2015, WTSWW was looking for an upgrade from its old analogue system, which just sent footage to a monitoring station. We put in a budget-friendly option but the salt in the air is aggressive, and those cameras just didn’t last.” The Trust raised funds for two Axis cameras which would help extend the reach of Skomer’s livestream to the world.
Our cameras help to bring Skomer to the screens of people across the world. The livestream is an amazing tool to engage with people that might not be able to visit in person.
Rising to the challenge
Pembrokeshire based Dragon WiFi was ready for the challenge of connecting Skomer Island and its wildlife to the viewing public. Guy Farley explains: “Our work at Dragon is very varied and we have a diverse customer base. We look after marine environments and we put mobile service into difficult spots in Scotland, so Skomer Island really suited us. I love the variety in working out what the customer needs in a unique situation and putting together bespoke solutions for an affordable price.”
Connecting with Skomer Island isn’t easy, and Dragon WiFi’s expertise in rural broadband proved highly valuable in linking the island’s cameras to the wider world. “It’s not your typical site,” says Farley. “It’s off-grid, there are no flushing toilets, all the power is solar electric. Phone signal on Skomer is sketchy, which makes Wi-Fi critical for the island. But there’s no broadband connection under the water, and no fibre. We had to be creative, so we attached their visitor centre on the mainland to our wireless broadband mast, then set up a wireless link over to the island which is 2 miles away.”
Seamless remote connectivity
While connectivity with the outside world was a challenge, establishing a running system with Axis hardware was straight forward. “For a task like this, where we were looking to establish YouTube streaming, it was perfect,” explains Farley. “We’re also partnered with livestreaming provider CamStreamer, and the integrations between that software and Axis hardware are excellent. Install the app, and we’ve got remote access to the cameras – no fiddling with routers or port forwarding. We’ve also fallen in love with AXIS Camera Station Edge: no quibble, no codecs needed. It just works.”
“With such a challenging environment, we’re grateful that Dragon WiFi made it possible,” says Grace Hunt. Setting up camera hardware on Skomer has not always proved entirely straightforward – Farley explains that burrowing by the island’s resident wildlife undermined an installation of a swan-necked pole mounted on a concrete block, for example. But the eventual solution, including an AXIS Q6315-LE PTZ camera and a P14-series bullet camera, suited the environment perfectly. Axis technologies proved critical; Lightfinder in aiding viewing of island activities day and night, and Axis Zipstream crucial for delivering good quality footage on land despite the limited bandwidth of the system’s wireless link.
Axis cameras just work. The support is fantastic, and we’ve fallen in love with AXIS Camera Station Edge: no quibble, no codecs needed.
Accessing Skomer’s education value
Grace Hunt says there are numerous reasons to watch Skomer Island’s webcams. “One is accessibility – the Trust is passionate about making sure people can connect with nature. Visiting Skomer can be difficult due to the climb on and off the boat, the 87 steps upon arrival, thin paths and rough terrain around the island. For some people, it’s just not possible to visit, so a livestream is an attractive alternative which allows people to experience the wildlife in real time, or to relive your visit at a different time. You’ve seen the puffins in the day – but Axis cameras mean viewers can see what they do at night, too.”
Streamed free to YouTube during the breeding season between March and September, views on the new Skomer Island livestream exceeded 120,000 in its first season. “It’s a great educational tool,” suggests Hunt, “fantastic for inspiring the next generation of conservationists. We use our Axis cameras for research and science, looking at the behaviour of the native wildlife and adding to our conservation work, and there’s a safety component – the cameras help us assess the state of the island remotely, and decide whether the weather is safe enough for us to make a boat landing.”
WTSWW hopes to promote livestream footage further in coming seasons, using it to raise the Trust’s profile and encourage new memberships, and Grace Hunt suggests that Skomer’s cameras may also help paint a clear picture of the island’s activities. “It’ll be nice to generate a timeline of the key moments in the life of a seabird. Showing our puffins and their pufflings, or highlighting when the Manx shearwaters have laid eggs, when the chick hatches, when they fledge. And one day we’d love to use the footage to create opportunities for volunteers that can’t make it to the island to help us monitor the livestreams and capture those key moments.”
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