A group of high school students in Wrangell, Alaska have designed and installed a livestream camera at the invitation of the U.S. Forest Service.
The cameras have been placed in a unique location where both Black and Brown bears are seen to cohabit – at the remote Anan Wildlife Observatory. “There are bears all over Southeast Alaska, but here at Anan we see both species interacting, living together, and raising their young right here along the river,” says ranger Jen Kardiac of the US Forest Service.
From early July through August, the Anan Creek draws bears from the surrounding area to feast in one of the largest pink salmon runs in Southeastern Alaska. Located deep in the Tongass National Forest, just 2400 lucky visitors a year get to watch the bears fish and interact along the creek – visitor numbers are limited to minimise environmental impact. This new installation allows anyone around the world to tune in ‘LIVE‘.
Brian Reggiani runs the Teaching Through Technology program from the University of Alaska Fairbanks: “We now have 15 rural high schools participating in after-school clubs in each community. The group in Wrangell has really shined – in part because of its unique collaboration with the Forest Service. From trail mapping to drone site surveys, each new project has grown in its scope and complexity, which has been really exciting for the students.”
Three years ago, the Forest Service suggested they’d like to put a live camera system on the creek. The Wrangell’s club’s 10 students worked through the winter planning the project after school. From spreadsheet power load assessment, through underwater camera research, remote power supply, to video storytelling, the students first made an exhaustive and professional analysis of what was required before designing a system that would achieve it.
Locations to Note:
- Side 1 is the side with the viewing deck and photographers’ blind.
- Side 2 is the other side of the creek, where the caves are located. The Lower Falls and Caves camera only shows Side 2.
- There are four Fishing Holes, all of which are visible with the four cameras.
- Fishing Holes 1 and 2 are visible on the Lower Falls and Caves cam, with Fishing Hole 1 to the left, in front of the large cave. Fishing Hole 2 is further down, to the right.
- Fishing Hole 3 is the one directly below the Fishing Hole 3 camera, and you can also partly see Fishing Hole 2, across the creek from this camera as well.
- NEW-Fishing Hole 4 is upstream on the other side of the deck.
- NEW-Forest View allows us to watch as bears come and go, checking if Fishing Hole 4 is available or emerging from fishing with a salmon in their mouth, heading into the forest to eat. Some bears also like to lounge on the tree stump near the deck.
The Forest Service asked that the camera system be operational for at least seven months of the year – from mid-March to mid-October – and that it should be mostly solar-powered …quite a challenge in Southeast Alaska, where it rains much of the spring and fall.
“We had to look at weather and irradiance data to try to estimate how much power our solar panels could collect. We took data from another solar system that’s been operating on a floating ranger station for about 10 years, and used that information to estimate the performance of components installed in that same environment,” says Brian.
“The cameras run 24/7; they have a normal camera lens during the day and an infrared camera to pick up bear activity at night.”
“In case of an issue, the Forest Service wanted enough battery backup to have a few days to fix it without the cameras going down. So we sized our system for about four days of operating time if you turned off the solar breakers, which just gives us time to get out to Anan if needed.”
The power system at the Anan Wildlife Observatory consists of:
- MultiPlus-II 24/3000
- 3 x 250/60 SmartSolar MPPT charge controllers
- Cerbo GX – is the communication hub for all devices controlling power harvest storage and usage, and also providing programming and monitoring access to the system from anywhere in the world via Victron’s free-to-use platform VRM
- GX Touch 50 displays system data with fingertip control
- Lynx Distributor 1000 a modular busbar with monitored fuses
- 4 x Pylontech UP2500 24V batteries
Brian really liked their choices: “All the components were super easy to use and configure. Things just worked, which was really nice. We’d done a lot of work ahead of time, so each of the kids knew what each component did, and how they should be wired.”
“We coach the students to have a growth mindset and ask for help when needed. That makes a big difference when working on a project like this that requires a lot of problem solving. It helps the students take risks, understanding that they are in a mode of learning and can figure out the right answers.”
Student Andrei (9th grade), enjoyed working on the mathematics – sizing the system to suit the application. He says: “We built a spreadsheet with all our different watt hours and added everything up. From there, we worked backwards to size the solar array, the charge controllers, the inverter, and the batteries to make it all happen. We played with the spreadsheet until we could say, Okay, here is our total load, here is how much energy we think we can collect during a rainy week in September. I remember being really nervous that my math was right. We told the Forest Service that it would work, and in the end it did. But it felt like one big experiment when we installed it. It was really fun, and I had not done anything like that before.”
The ultimate goal was to broadcast the livecam through Explore.org, a non-profit that manages hundreds of wildlife cams all over the world.
Jen is a big proponent of live cams. “Livestreams are a really powerful way to connect people to places like the Tongass National Forest and the animals who live there. When you start to identify individual bears, it changes how we respond to- and participate in conservation efforts. So that when there are threats to a particular area, there’s already a group of people who are motivated to protect that area.
When the tech team from Explore.org got involved with the project, and reviewed the student’s’work, they were blown away! The students were spot on with how they had made their sizing calculations.” says Brian.
Brian and the students made the trip to Anan – which is about an hour’s journey by boat. Once they got to the trailhead, there was another mile’s walk through beautiful old-growth forest around the lagoon and along Anan Creek.
The Observatory sits right over the creek, getting visitors up close and personal with the action below.
“It’s very wild being there and spending time with the bears. Each of them has such a different personality – as different as humans. There were about 24 individual bears that we identified and named. Scuba Sue was a class favourite. She can hold her breath for two minutes. She’s an amazing fisherman but a terrible mother – because she forgets about her cubs crying on the shore.”
After a few days, when the students had everything installed, something with the power system wasn’t working. They called Reid Loessberg at the Victron distributor Intelligent Controls, who also provide support to the Explore.org tech team.
A firmware update and some basic tweaks to the programming of the charging setup was needed – via the Victron Remote Management portal VRM. The firmware updates were installed, settings were adjusted for the installation, and some quick troubleshooting got them back up and running. Keeping the focus on educational aspect of the facility and the installation process, Reid was able to join the team remotely and help guide the student-led crew through the final details of the installation, and before long they were ready to go.
“It was an eager group,” says Reid; “probably five or six people on the phone at one point! There were one or two things that they hadn’t figured out – but never-the-less it’s a huge learning curve and they’d done a really impressive job.”
The system was installed in 2024. Ahead of this summer season the students took the power system back to their classroom, preassembling everything onto a mounting board -and then reinstalled it in a separate room at the observatory so that the Starlink could send a cleaner signal. The Forest Service requested two more cameras on the upper falls – a location where there is no observation deck.
“We knew that our batteries could handle the additional load,” says Brian “because the cameras don’t draw that much power themselves. The heaviest load is the Starlink and TV monitor when turned on.“
“Every morning for the last week, we’ve been logging into VRM just to make sure things are still working; we see that all four cameras only use a hundred watts of electricity, and we’re seeing that information in real time. Just the other day we had 2000 watts at 60 amps coming in. It was amazing, and the kids and I were saying, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of power!’”
“The greatest part about this project is that the Forest Service has given these students an amazing opportunity by saying: ‘Go for it. We know you can figure it out.’”
Students from one of the 2024 installation trips, left to right: Spencer Petticrew, Nikolai Bardin-Siekawitch, Anika Herman, Ander Edens, Kalee Herman, Andrei Bardin-Siekawitch with mentors James Edens, Dylan Low, and Brian Reggiani
Headline image from an image by Ander Edens.
The students have also built a webpage where you can find out more about the Anan Wildlife Observatory – visit https://friendsofanan.org/
