Ocean camera network launched to protect wildlife in UK Overseas Territories
Photo issued by Marine Futures Lab, University of Western Australia showing Silky sharks near one of a network of underwater camera rigs which are being rolled out across UK Overseas Territories to help protect wildlife under the waves.
By Emily Beament, PA Environment Correspondent
A network of underwater camera rigs is being rolled out across UK Overseas Territories to help protect wildlife under the waves.
The network, which the Government said was the first of its kind and the world’s largest ocean monitoring system to protect wildlife, is part of the UK’s Blue Belt programme of marine protected areas around the globe.
A blue shark captured by the underwater camera network.
The targets: loggerhead turtles, silky sharks and sailfish. The mission: figure out how many of them are left.
The UK announced on Saturday it would launch a worldwide effort to monitor wildlife in the open oceans, hoping to fill a blue hole of scientific knowledge and get a clearer sense of which aquatic populations are under threat.
The project, akin to an underwater spy network, will fund a fleet of small action cameras, complete with bait, to be deployed about 30 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. Researchers will place a camera in the water where they hope to gather data, and it will record anything that swims near within a given window of time. The plan is for the project to span the globe, covering four oceans and the Caribbean in waters near 10 of the UK’s overseas territories.
BBC News
World’s largest ocean monitoring system BRUVS launched
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Professor Jessica Meeuwig, the Director of the Centre for Marine Futures at the University of Western Australia, has told the BBC about her hopes for a new ocean monitoring system. The UK government funded project, known as BRUVS, will focus on monitoring marine life in ten British Overseas Territories including Pitcairn and Ascension Island.
Video produced by Anna Boyd
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Silky sharks, Ascension
the worldâs first network of underwater camera rigs is being rolled out across the British Overseas Territories
the network will collect important biological information across the Caribbean, South Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans, making it the worldâs largest ocean wildlife monitoring system
information collected on marine life will support British Overseas Territories to protect their marine environment
The UK is to become the first country to pioneer a major network of underwater camera rigs, funding the worldâs largest ocean wildlife monitoring system to help protect life below water.
The network is being set up as part of the UK Government Blue Belt programme â which covers more than 4 million square kilometres of ocean.
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