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Project 5 - Pittsburgh
Hays Bald Eagle Webcam
The Hays bald eagles are the first nesting pair of bald
eagles in Pittsburgh in nearly 250 years. They first
nested near Pittsburgh in 2013 and we installed the
first ever camera on a Pennsylvania bald eagle nest in
2014. The nest is 5 miles of downtown Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania along the Monongahela River near where the
famed Carnegie Steel Homestead site once existed.
Industrialization beginning in the 19th century led to
extensive unregulated pollution of the rivers, which
decimated fish populations that eagles feed on. For
example, during a survey on Monongahela River in 1967,
one scientist could find only one bluegill. As efforts
to clean the waterways took effect over the past 30
years, 76 species of fish have been found in the
Monongahela.
This webcam is a pilot project with the
Pennsylvania Game Commission
which required a vast amount of work with the landowner,
commission, and biologists to make this a reality. The
camera system was installed on December 20, 2013. Ten
Pennsylvania Game Commission conservation officers
transported and install the camera equipment with our
help.
Video of Eagle Cam Installation
The camera system is a unique system
which was custom designed and manufactured by PixController,
Inc. The camera video feed is streamed over
Verizon Wireless 4G LTE cellular network. Verizon has
donated the data plan and bandwidth to stream the video signal
and their partner, Sierra
Wireless donate the 4G Gateway for the project. The video
stream host and player is provided by
WildEarth.tv
from South Africa. Because the system is installed in a
remote location the system is powered by a battery bank, which
was supplied by
Interstate Batteries, and is solar charged. This is truly a
team effort by many people to bring this video feed to you.
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Eagle Cam
Graphic above which was designed by the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette |
The camera is a
Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera with built-in IR illuminators for night
time illumination. The camera is mounted in a tree about 30
yards from the nest site with a view down into the nest. We can
remotely move and zoom the camera and follow the eagles. During
the day the video will be broadcast in color and during the
night the video will switch over to black & white. We remotely
monitor the battery power and site security via M2M (machine to
machine) devices designed by us to keep the
video feed streaming and secure without the need for human
presence.
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