Adventure Journal Post
VIDEO: A Wild Year in a National Park
What happens when a camera is looking at wildlife coming and going and we only see later how awesome it is.By Steve Casimiro, Guest Writer, 7-08-11
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| One of the visitors in one year in one spot, time-lapsed, in Banff. | |
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On one level, this video of creatures captured by a single webcam in Banff National Park, Alberta, over the course of a year is incredibly cool. Bears, elk, mountain lions…mountain bikers, hikers, ravens…the spot is like Grand Central Station for wildlife. True, the images were edited together, and no doubt there were long periods of a whole lotta nothing going on. But the variety and volume is astounding.
Which leads one to a sense of awe and a glimpse into the notion that what goes on generally out of sight of man is pretty incredible and pretty important. We know there are critters out there, but they’re so often shy and we’ve pushed so many of them off into corners far from the sprawl of our houses and roads that it lets us forget the world is populated by far more beings than ourselves. We know this, but we don’t retain it.
With its lingering gaze on one spot in the forest witnessing the richness of life, perhaps this video can, in addition to awe, inspire a little humility, too.
Steve Casimiro is the founder of Adventure Journal, which originally published this post.
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Comments
But, human use, the ski machine, the hikers and cross country skiers, all were there, and the top predators all that way down to a marten or a weasel, the ravens. I would guess a camera like that in any travel path would show similar results over a year...
All the more to show the need for over and under passes to allow freeways and high speed highways to NOT be the killing fields that they are. We don't need more wildlands. We need habitat connectivity that under and over passes will provide....and less meat on the asphalt...