Wisenet goes nature watching
in Slovakian National Park of Veľká Fatra

Wisenet enables animal lovers and students to remotely observe the behavior of birds, bears, boars and foxes in the wild, “Its audio support feature enhances the visitors’ experience by enabling them to hear background bird sounds.”

— Ivan Darani, Network engineer at PROFI-NET,s.r.o

♦ Challenge

In Slovakia, the National Park, Veľká Fatra, and PROFI-NET,s.r.o, one of the fastest growing network and infrastructure specialists, together carried a project called ‘Kukaj.sk.’ The purpose of this project was to provide opportunity to observe animals in their natural habitat, and they believed that the project will enrich people’s lives with valuable experiences, tracking animals’ behavior and the ethology of species, and ultimately contributing to the positive perception of large beasts in the Great Fatra.

“For a number of reasons, including the remote location, this has been a technically demanding project,” said Ivan Darani of PROFI-NET,s.r.o. Ivan Darani and his colleagues worked closely with Hanwha Vision Europe’s locally based technical team for Czech Republic and Slovakia, in order to specify the ideal Wisenet cameras for the projects.

♦ Solution

Wisenet cameras have been deployed in carefully chosen locations throughout a wooded area which is known to be a migration trail for large beasts. Some of the cameras are permanently sited, but others are regularly moved around to reflect the changing seasons and when, for example, storks leave their nests.

Wisenet PNO-9080R 4K Bullet cameras, which features built-in IR illumination as well as a Digital Auto Tracking were installed. During times of low activity such as night time, it can detect moving animals. It delivers optimized images in every situation by offering Defocus Detection which recognizes when a camera is out of focus, as well as Lens Distortion Correction (LDC). To minimize video data bandwidth, PNO-9080R cameras feature H.265 with WiseStream, Hanwha Vision’s unique compression technology, improving data management efficiency by up to 75% compared to current H.264.

Wisenet XNB-6000, 2 megapixel Full HD cameras were also installed. It delivers color images even when lighting is as low as 0.01Lux@F1.2 and features 150dB Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) to accurately produce images in scenes that simultaneously contain very bright and very dark areas. They are also equipped with a defogging feature which makes corrections to blurry images in foggy conditions and have built-in Gyro sensors to offer necessary stabilization which comes into effect when a camera is disturbed by wind or vibrations, creating more stable images.

♦ Result

Wisenet cameras manufactured by Hanwha Vision have been installed in the Slovakian National Park of Veľká Fatra, to enable animal lovers and students to remotely observe the behavior of birds, bears, boars and foxes in the wild. “We tested cameras from a number of different manufacturers in terms of their ability to capture the required quality images in varying light and weather conditions. The Wisenet cameras stood head and shoulders above the others and our decision to recommend them to Kukaj.sk has been more than justified by their ongoing reliable performance.” said Ivan Darani, “An added benefit is that the cameras have an audio support feature which enhances the visitors’ experience by enabling them to hear background bird sounds.”

With the close cooperation and excellent support of everyone involved in the project, the project has been able deliver a robust video monitoring solution that everyone around the world can enjoy having access to.

A Life Saver

“We are delighted with the quality of the images captured by the Wisenet cameras and particularly so as they recently helped us save the life of a man who got lost whilst wandering around the Park,” said Ivan Darani, “He had injured himself after falling over several times and was hypothermic. It would normally be very difficult to find someone within such a large wooded area, but fortunately one of our operators spotted him with the help of one of the Wisenet cameras. The man was exceptionally lucky as another camera captured images of a bear just 30 meters away!”

Purpose of the Kukaj.sk project

“Not everyone has the opportunity to spend long periods of time in a beautiful environment such as the National Park of Veľká Fatra in order to watch animals in the natural environment,” said Ivan Darani, “The high definition quality of the images captured by the Wisenet cameras means we can stream live video so that visitors to www.kukaj.sk are able to enjoy watching the wild animals in real-time as they go about their daily lives, from the comfort of their homes.”

See the TV report:

Rescue of Human Life(Záchrana ľudského života)

24/7 Live streams at Velka Fatra:

From one of the Hanwha Vision cameras