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June 17, 2005
The California Wolf Center and HPWREN Collaborate on Real-Time Acoustics Sensors Project
Last year's installation of the HPWREN camera at the California Wolf Center, and the availability of its live feed, has enhanced the Center's ability to deliver educational programs both on-site and at remote locations, including classrooms, and has facilitated observation and management of the wolves by Center staff. A litter of pups was born at the Center in late April, and as they develop and spend more time out of the den exploring their environment, some of their interactions with each other and with the adult members of the pack that have been and will be recorded by the camera will provide interesting and useful information. The recent addition of an audio feed will allow pack vocalizations to be monitored, recorded, and used for educational and research purposes. Although the audio system is still being refined, some fascinating vocalizations had already been recorded. Some immediate issues encountered were the impact of high wind situations at the Center, and a plan has been developed to research improvements by various wind shields, including foams, but also synthetic fur that was provided by the UCLA Center for Embedded Networked Sensing for this purpose. Some initial wolf sounds were collected by streaming the audio across the network and collecting the data remotely, and processing it with the baudline spectrum analyzer. Results are seen in the sound samples and images below, with annotations by Kim Miller and Priscilla Hernandez of the California Wolf Center.
After the wind issues are addressed, the intention is to collect the wolf sounds automatically as they appear, likely using the "listener" software, while making sound samples available in near-real-time in the California Wolf Center section of the HPWREN acoustics server. By Dan Moriarty, PhD, Department of Psychology, University
of San Diego, and California Wolf Center staff Kim Miller and
Priscilla Hernandez
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