Toronto Wildlife Centre’s rescue team is looking to match their expert skill with the latest technology to help more animals, more efficiently.
The rescue team wants to help animals fast and with an even higher success rate. They are looking at technologies ranging from as simple as a quick-firing net gun to as complex as a remotely triggered trail camera that is connected to the cellular network. This would instantly inform them with a photo if an animal has been successfully trapped, or has returned to a site that they are monitoring.
A compact thermal imager is another piece of equipment that the rescue team is looking to add to their tool box. The infrared technology would allow our rescuers to see an animal’s heat signature. This would be useful for finding animals hidden in brush, rescuing wildlife stuck inside buildings or structures, finding animals at night when it’s too dark to see and even testing paw prints to see if they’re fresh and the animal is still near.
“Say we know there’s an injured coyote in a back yard with many hiding spots. We don’t want to storm in there and scare him away. We want to be able to predict his movement and rescue him as effectively as possible and the only way we can do that is by knowing where he is,” rescue team leader, Andrew Wight said.
Devising a strategy based on an animal’s location would allow our rescue team to locate animals faster, increasing success and saving precious time that could be used to help even more wildlife.
Our team also has their eye on a camera equipped drone.
“We want to use drones for aerial surveillance in situations like when we have a baby owl that came from a nest that is difficult to access. If there’s no other baby in the original nest, we can build a new nest, and the parent will simply find their baby and relocate to the new nest. If there’s another baby in the nest, we can’t separate the family and will need to return the baby to the original nest. If we had a camera equipped drone, we could easily see if there are any other babies in the original nest and plan accordingly,” Andrew explained.
For more information on any one of these items click here.
If you are interested in providing our rescue team with one of the tools on their wish list, email [email protected] or call 416-631-0662 ext 3207.
