After the success of Eaglecam, Arthur Griffiths’ firm is broadcasting from a watering hole at Kruger National Park
Nicholas Read
Sun
VANCOUVER – For everyone who sat up night and day watching two bald eagles live out their wild lives atop a tree on Vancouver Island, there is now a sequel, much bigger and grander in scope.
Download www.wavelit.com, click on Africam Wildlife Channel, and there it is, life at an African watering hole, complete with lions, elephants, zebras and hyenas.
And once again, it’s being brought to you by former hockey mogul-turned-Internet CEO, Arthur Griffiths.
It was Griffiths’ company, Infotec Business Systems, that made it possible for millions of people around the world to follow the heartbreak of two eagle eggs breaking apart last spring.
Eaglecam was a surprise success for Infotec, but one Griffiths and his company paid close attention to.
“I’ve travelled the world on business related to this company, and people from every walk of life said they were watching it and their kids were watching it. Everyone was watching it,” Griffiths said in an interview Monday.
Thus, his thinking goes, if people were that turned on by just two animals, think how excited they’ll get by hundreds, which is what wavelit promises.
A camera has been placed at the Nkorho Bush Lodge near a watering hole in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the camera, which began broadcasting live on Saturday, will simply record and transmit whatever’s there, live and in colour.
Giraffes, water buffaloes, springboks, impalas, wild boar, you name it, says Griffiths. Just as with Eaglecam, nature is the director.
Even at night when comparatively little is going on — remember that Kruger is nine hours ahead of Vancouver, so the best time to watch here is in the evening, he says — viewers can still hear a cacophony of night sounds.
The basic site is free, although on Monday it was difficult to access with a Mac system. Griffiths said he was looking into that.
However, later in the month, a subscriber site will be introduced with more features, including different camera views and perhaps interviews with wildlife experts.
The site also pays for itself through advertising, Griffiths says.
He is also planning to hook up a similar system at the top of Grouse Mountain so viewers can watch the daily goings-on of Coola and Grinder, the two grizzlies that live at the mountain’s refuge for endangered wildlife.
That should be available in one to two weeks, he said. “I feel confident,” Griffiths said, “that this will surpass anything we’ve seen yet.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
