BCG last visit to Wölferlingen
After a couple of months of partial lockdown in the Netherlands due to COVID-19, Field Engineer Jan Karssies of Bird Control Group was finally able to do his last maintenance visit of the LIFE Laser Fence test site in Wölferlingen, Germany. Not having visited the site for almost three months, he found the installed wild trap cameras to have captured about 60 GB of data in 1400 new video clips. These video files will be analysed in the following weeks, to look for any interaction between animal and laser.
The trial was intended to end in the beginning of April. Since an equipment pick-up was not possible at the time due to the Corona pandemic, the laser has simply been switched off by the local land owner, but the cameras remained switched on. Analysing the footage might therefore show an increase in animal activity over the last two months, gaining some more insight in their reaction to the laser equipment. According to the landowner however, a lack of increased activity might also be addressed to larger crops in the field, which makes it a less attractive area for deer to wander.
Three of the most interesting videos seen over the past years can be seen below.:
1.One shows a beautiful shot of a fox, roaming through the snow. Link to video
2A second one shows one of the most interesting ones for the project: it shows both a deer and a laser, even with a possible reaction from the deer. Link to video
3. The third one is simply a very funny one, in which a deer clearly gets startled, albeit not by one of the laser. Link to video
Really interesting to see how nature is reacting to this pandemia!
