Improving bison surveillance

Last winter, when our first ten bison were delivered, the need for a way to monitor the bison 24/7 from any location became very apparent.  This need became further amplified when some of the bison escaped less than a minute after being released into our ranch.  Though they were quickly brought back within the fence, that event had a profound impact on my confidence.  That night and for weeks afterwards I would have nightmares about my bison being able to jump 100 yards in a single bound. 

However, though nerve-racking, that experience pushed me to to accelerate the establishment of a monitoring system that has become something I use nearly everyday.  Based on a system I had put together to capture videos inside one of my beehives (see blog this blog post for the final product and here, here, here, here, and here for the full story on its development), the bison monitoring system started out with just one HD camera.  The camera captured an image every 2.5 minutes and then sent them to me in an automated email every 60 minutes.  The above video is a compilation of all the images for one day.  During this period the herd passes by the camera on two occasions.

More recently I made a number of changes and additions to the system to increase its usefulness.  One of these changes was to increase the number of cameras which provides greater coverage of more of the pastures.  Another change was to decrease image resolution.  Although pretty much the rest of the world is constantly trying to increase image resolution I see little use for it in this context, so I decided to reconfigure motion (a Linux program) to capture images at a lower resolution (see photo below).

An image of the herd captured early this morning, shortly before the "epic" winter storm Jonas arrived.  The bison are clearly visible and can even be counted at this resolution. Note that the timestamp is GMT. 

In addition to video surveillance, I'm also having fun learning how to program microcontrollers in C, which will allow me to integrate a plethora of other sensors into the system.  Top on my list are: a series of sensors that continually monitor each strand of my electric fence, data on the status of the photovoltaic system that powers the station, and local weather data.  Because these microcontrollers use so little energy and most sensors are cheap and abundant, the possibilities in this field are pretty much endless. 

Of course, as I have described in previous posts, I also use a night vision monocle to surveil and navigate the property at night.  Some things, such as gunshots or barking dogs, need to be investigated and monitored right away and often the safest way for me to do that is a way that avoids disclosing my position to the bison and whatever else I'm investigating.  The last thing I want to do is startle the herd by shining them in the eyes with a headlamp or spotlight.  Typically, when using the monocle, as long as I stay down-wind from the herd and don't make a lot of noise while walking, I can bypass the herd without them ever noticing me. 

Bison imaged at night using a night vision monocle.  I captured this image by simply holding the monocle to my camera lens, so the quality is very poor.  In actuality the view is very sharp and crisp. 

My current monocle uses only a 1st Generation intensifier, but it works fine for bison.  If I ever do decide to upgrade, I will probably opt to purchase one of the low-priced hand-held thermal imaging devices that have recently entered the market.  Even though they are fairly low-resolution, they rise above all other night optics (in my opinion) in that they actually allow you to see body heat.  I recently read an account of one such device in which the user was able to spot mice moving in grass 100 yards away.