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One of the most distinctive features of video surveillance, both as a system and a process, is its astonishing flexibility. Surveillance cameras for anyone’s liking – IP, analog, USB, Wi-Fi – can be deployed to ensure the security of areas near residential or enterprise-related premises, as well as to monitor all kinds of activity performed by supervised objects. These “objects” don’t mean something inanimate only (an opening door, an empty porch, a car parked in your yard), they also stand for animate lifeforms – for example, wildlife.

Wildlife surveillance can entail many things: meticulous control of your designated area’s safety, someone’s hobby, and even a means of earning money! The photos and videos you receive can be preserved for private use or posted on thematic portals. The end result solely depends on your fascination with the neighboring fauna and your imagination!

An operational and well-configured wildlife surveillance system relies on one key factor – a surveillance program that can be utilized for security and monitoring purposes and is versatile enough to effortlessly adapt to any task. An example of such universal software is Xeoma. Using Xeoma’s generous array of cutting-edge features, let us showcase how wildlife surveillance can be made smart, practical, and quick in real time.

Where wildlife surveillance is needed

Private houses
If you own a house in the countryside, a wildlife watch system will definitely come in handy. It can assist you with monitoring various wild animals in order to effectively and timely react should they attempt to chew on your wires, attack your garden, or make a mess inside the house itself.

Parks
Wild animals inhabit many parks – for instance, you can often spot squirrels at any time of the day while taking a stroll in nature. Public park wildlife surveillance can be both a guarantee of visitor safety and a source of additional income: detailed animal photos and videos can be posted on separate platforms or have a dedicated gallery on the company’s website.

Beaches
Seabirds are frequent inhabitants of many coastal settlements, and beaches usually allow to observe their activity. As with parks, video surveillance can serve two purposes, ensuring the safety of guests and their possessions, and capturing the natural behaviors of seabirds.

Read also: How to detect seabirds with smart video surveillance in Xeoma

National parks
Of course, modern and smart video surveillance systems should be a must for national parks and similar nature reserves, as they are vital to any country’s environment and culture. Such reserves make it possible to admire wildlife in its natural habitat – instead of disturbing its innate rhythms with regular and often dangerous trips to the forest, you can joyfully spectate at the grace and deftness of wildlife via video recording and broadcasting.

Zoos
Modern zoos are hardly imaginable without smart video surveillance. After all, zoos also consist of the many wonders of the coexistence of wildlife and humans. If a zoo video surveillance system is properly installed and configured, it can also be used to track staff efficiency so that animals receive proper, timely care, and visitors do not enter restricted areas.

Read also: Zooveillance

Examples of using Xeoma video surveillance software for wildlife monitoring

Motion detector – to capture photos and videos of wildlife within your preview

The first option that comes to mind when planning how to capture the beauty of wildlife is recording by motion. “Motion Detector”, a basic Xeoma module available in every single edition of the program (even Xeoma Free), will help with that.

Create the simplest chain of three modules: “Universal Camera” ↔ “Motion Detector” ↔ “Preview and Archive”, and your wildlife video watch system is ready! This kind of chain is also convenient because it only records the most interesting moments, i.e. when animals enter the frame. As a result, you will not need to search through hours of recorded footage or waste time looking for a device with enough memory to fit large archives. Once an animal residing in your area of interest appears within camera preview, the “Motion Detector” module will become “Triggered”…

And transfer the video further to record it. If animals dash through the frame sporadically or too quickly, you can adjust your detector’s sensitivity or enable the “Post-record” option. Post-record will also prove useful if animals appear in camera frame and still to listen to their surroundings.

Read also: Prerecord and post-record in Xeoma video surveillance software

False alarms can pose a concern and make it so that your system reacts to all kinds of animals instead of only one – or even to phenomena like rain and leaf-fall. Xeoma has you covered – the universal “Motion Detector” module can be configured to suit any need!

Read also: Preventing false alarms with the motion detector in Xeoma video surveillance

Cross-line detector – to ensure the safety of observers and the observed

Another extremely useful module of Xeoma’s smart video surveillance is “Cross-Line Detector”. The way this module functions is simple and intuitive: once you go to its dialog box, you are offered to draw a virtual line. Whenever a detected object interacts with the line, the program will react. For all its simplicity, the module can be applied to an assortment of tasks – we will only provide some of them as examples.

1. You can use it to capture the appearance of an animal in a specific area of the territory you oversee – for instance, when a bird enters a nest or a birdhouse;



2. You can be alerted when an animal leaves the frame – the system will notify you that detection or recording has stopped, which might be valuable for live recording;
3. You can maintain the security of an area reserved specifically for wildlife. This usage will prove indispensable to nature reserves, national parks, and zoos;
4. You can keep track of wild animals that enter the area near your house. Xeoma can also take it upon itself to scare them away – just add the “Sound Alarm” module to your chain, and the system will turn on the sound signal.

Object detector – to get notified whenever an animal leaves the frame

The smart video surveillance of Xeoma has a module called “Object Detector” that transfers video for recording only when detected objects remain within camera preview. This option will come in handy for lengthy periods of filming: for example, in the field, when it takes hours to monitor a wild animal in its habitat so as not to spook it off. Instead of tedious manual filming, just place your camera and add the “Object Detector” module to its chain.

This module can also be used for regular parks, national parks, and zoos. Some animals that require supervision are often lazy and enjoy sunbathing in their favorite corner of the enclosure – as such, their absence might indicate that something is wrong. Alternatively, you can use this module to monitor sick or injured animals that were prescribed not to move much.

Object recognizer – to recognize wild animals with maximum accuracy via contemporary AI methods

The unlimited features of the Xeoma video surveillance program include object recognition by type. Instead of tracking every object within preview, both animate and inanimate, and sort through your archives manually, you can deploy the newest AI tools to do it for you. The “Object Recognizer” module of Xeoma is specifically designed to solve such tasks while telling animate and inanimate objects apart. Once you enter the module’s settings, select the needed recognition model – the model will be “Animals” in our case:

And the program will do all the detecting and recording for you! For bird recognition, the module provides several models, including seabirds.

This intelligent module is also convenient in terms of purchase: it can be purchased by model so that the user focuses on the required object type. If you only need animal detection while human and car recognition does not fit your project, you can only buy one type of the module to create your dream wildlife monitoring system with minimal spendings.

For bird recognition, the models are also divided into landbirds and seabirds – the latter will be useful for beaches, harbors, and ships.

As the example above demonstrates, the module handles seabird recognition exceptionally well. This sort of variation is also convenient because it increases the overall accuracy.

PTZ tracking – to survey wildlife dynamically

The examples above (e.g., “Object Detector”) chiefly touched upon wildlife video surveillance within one position of the frame. However, the features provided by the Xeoma video monitoring program do not end there – quite contrarily, the software also supports PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) cameras. The “PTZ Tracking” module allows you to configure your PTZ cameras so that they automatically turn to track a moving object. If the animal you observe leaves the frame, the camera will follow its path, ensuring continuous surveillance and recording.

If your cameras do not support PTZ, you can apply digital zoom – a feature that allows you to zoom the image in and out manually. And in the event you require a complex surveillance system with intricate automation of camera positioning and the analytics applied to the image, Xeoma provides the “Moving to PTZ preset” module that will make your cameras oversee the territory and analyze the data in search of animals on their own.

Read also: Moving to PTZ preset

Streaming to YouTube – to demonstrate wildlife to the world

If you run a YouTube channel dedicated to nature or simply wish to duplicate your camera streams on an Internet platform, the “Streaming to YouTube” module might be just what you need. It will help you demonstrate the most unique moments from your nature watch to your subscribers – or friends, if you prefer private streams.

The module can be used to broadcast your videos to a similar platform, RuTube. The steps repeat those for streaming to YouTube – and are just as intuitive and easy to follow!

Color recognition – to detect the most striking specimens of wildlife

Xeoma’s smart video surveillance is suitable for solving the most non-standard tasks, because the program’s flexible video analytics leaves enough room for extraordinary (but no less effective!) solutions. One of such solutions is evidenced by the intelligent “Color Recognition” module. As the name suggests, this module reacts to color of detected objects, which can be useful when the aforementioned modules do not match your projects in full and/or the wild animals you monitor are easily recognizable by their color.
All you need to do is to configure the module to recognize a specific color:

And Xeoma will utilize its video analytics based on new parameters. As we can see, Xeoma’s detection is incredibly easy to use – all it needs is a pinch of creativity.

Additional features

The most flexible, multioption, and functional wildlife video surveillance system can be built with many Xeoma tools that are not limited to its 30+ contemporary AI detectors. Xeoma offers its users a variety of other means to fine-tune and facilitate their monitoring setup.
We have already mentioned the “Preview and Archive” module that handles the recording and cataloging your video materials. You can enhance your archives even further with the “Scheduler” module that can manage the time and day of recording. With continuous recording, you can search Xeoma’s Archive Viewer directly – the segments that contain any kind of detected movement will be highlighted. It is also possible to export the needed clips from the archive in any format you find convenient – this feature might be useful for private use or, for example, creating thematic videos.

Read also: How to calculate low-quality archive space

You can view your wildlife video previews or streams via Xeoma’s remote access. One such option is to store all the archives on one device, your server, and view them via a client-server connection. Another (but not the last) option is the “Web Server” module that allows you to admire the diversity of wildlife through any brower: just copy the link from the module’s dialog box.

The “Screenshot” feature of Xeoma is designed to help you save the best moments of your videos as images. You can access this feature directly from the main menu of Xeoma Standard and Xeoma Pro – next, select the location to save your images or specify an e-mail address where they will be sent. Speaking of e-mail, screenshots or even video fragments of your streams can be sent via the “Sending E-mail” module whenever detection occurs. Depending on your needs, you can also configure the interval of receiving such e-mails.

Read also: Sending e-mail and other ways of receiving notifications with the Xeoma video surveillance software

Your archives can be saved to multiple directories, including those on other devices and even a separate cloud service. Xeoma Cloud will be a great solution because you won’t even need to deploy your own server to manage your videos – all it requires is a camera and Internet access.

An unprecedented feature of Xeoma is its support of many devices, including microcomputers like Raspberry and Orange Pi. If necessary, such devices can act as a mini-server for remote wildlife monitoring – this setup will save you a lot of money that might otherwise be spent on large computers or individual systems.

Read also: HTTP upload to another Xeoma

Conclusion

As shown by the article, wildlife watch based on video surveillance can be both fascinating and feasible. Xeoma makes wildlife monitoring, detection, and security possible thanks to such features as:

1. A plethora of modules that involve modern AI technologies and can detect motion, objects, color, etc.;
2. Support of PTZ cameras and specialized presets, as well as ePTZ;
3. A flexible archive system with lots of photo and video export options;
4. Options to create unique client-and-server systems, incl. those based on microcomputers.

Other features of Xeoma that are worth mentioning:

1. The software can be run on all popular operating systems, including Linux and Linux ARM;
2. 99% cameras on the market can connect to the program – the list includes infrared night vision cameras that allow to monitor and record wildlife at night when a significant bunch of wild animals become active;
3. Xeoma’s Multiserver Mode can be used to create a centralized surveillance system with multiple servers;
4. The program allows to add an unlimited number of cameras (for preview in Xeoma Free and Starter, and for preview and archive recording in Standard and Pro). The only exception is Xeoma Lite.

Naturally, the list above is far from encompassing every single feature that Xeoma-based monitoring systems can offer to organize smart wildlife surveillance. If you have ideas that you want to share, take part in our special offers: share a demonstrative video or an article and get Xeoma licenses for free!

 

 

April 1, 2025

Read also:
Full list of additional modules in Xeoma
Xeoma and object recognition in private life
Xeoma is a veterinary clinic