Orana Wildlife Park: CCTV cameras keep an eye on gorillas.

Background

Orana Wildlife Park is Aotearoa’s only open range zoo and is home to over 1000 animals from 90 different species. The Park makes significant contributions to recovery programmes for Aotearoa’s threatened species (e.g. kākāriki karaka, NZ’s rarest parakeet). Connecting visitors with wildlife inspires people to care about the plight of Aotearoa’s and the world’s endangered species. 

Orana Wildlife Park is home to Aotearoa’s only gorillas as part of their Managed conservation programme for this critically endangered species. Orana is involved in regional zoo-based messaging campaigns to ensure consistent delivery of take-home actions to visitors e.g. “They’re Calling on You” is a mobile phone recycling programme to help gorillas.  

In 2015, Orana completed the biggest project in its history, the Great Ape Centre (GAC) that is home to the Park’s magnificent gorillas as well as Siamang gibbon apes and lemurs.

The Job

CCTV cameras are a crucial element in operating the GAC. Fifteen cameras display to screens in keeper areas enabling the staff to operate hydraulic slides to move animals. The old camera system had failed and was displaying an alarming lag between the cameras and display screens. This became a key issue pertaining to animal management as well as a potential safety concern.

Orana liaised with Teltrac as well as a contracted IT provider GlobalPC. For many months working together, we determined a solution to meet the requirements to completely eliminate lag. thus ensuring live footage can be viewed in real-time. Teltrac determined the lag was caused by browsing to the Ubiquiti NVR across a wireless bridge, which only exacerbated the issue. They explained that ordinarily for live view, a direct HDMI feed from an NVR would be best, or alternatively a dedicated decoder to pull the camera stream and display it onto the screens. 

The Solution

Teltrac took a significant time reviewing the Park’s system on-site. this included testing the old cameras’ ability to connect to open-source software (unsuccessfully). After extensive research and testing, Teltrac settled on a solution to remedy issues.

Teltrac recommended Orana:

• Replace all cameras with new Hikvision cameras, noting that the Park already had Hikvision PTZ cameras in place working well.
• Add new display monitors and decoders.
• Install an NX Witness VMS server and software to drive the cameras
• And a Wisenet Decoder for each screen to handle the live view displays.

NX Witness is an open-source programme that is a highly intuitive solution. It is superior in terms of its features, remote viewing, playback and ease of use.

Moving to NX Witness future-proofs the Park. Any future cameras will be able to be activated by the same software. Orana is delighted to report that the new system, which took one week to install prior to the July Holidays, is a significant improvement. There is no lag and the new 4K cameras provide not only crystal-clear imagery but have a wider view.

For example, the Park was contemplating adding one extra camera in the siamang indoor day room. Although the new cameras have such a wide angle view that there is no longer a need for this. Previously, the outdoor cameras were managed on a separate software. But keepers are now able to access live video feeds from all cameras located at the GAC through NX Witness.

Conclusion

Orana Wildlife Park operates as a charitable trust. They separately raise 100% of their funds for capital improvements and developments such as the new camera system. The Park thanks the Teltrac and GlobalPC teams for their innovative solutions towards the improvement of CCTV in the GAC. Orana would like to give a huge shout-out to the Kiwi Gaming Foundation, who generously provided funding. This funding enabled this critical infrastructure project to proceed.

Teltrac is proud and honoured to be part of the inspiring journey of Orana Wildlife Park. CCTV technology can be fun! Contact Teltrac now for more information on your CCTV solution.