Internet overload shuts down EagleCam - State searching for another siteJournal Staff
May 11, 2002 - KENT -- The Internet service provider for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's EagleCam Web site discontinued service this week because it couldn't keep up with the demand to view the site.
The site provided video images of a bald eagle's nest taken by a camera placed in a Kent couple's back yard. But it was taken off line after thousands of simultaneous viewers, trying to get a live glimpse of newly hatched eaglets, out-stripped the allotted bandwidth.
Efforts to transfer the site to state servers also caused serious overload problems, according to wildlife officials, who are working to locate an alternate service provider that can handle the high volume of Internet traffic.
Last year, in its first season, the EagleCam site was visited about 600,000 times. The number of viewers has surged recently in response to the hatching of the eagle eggs in April. Some viewers were keeping the EagleCam open on their computers for long periods of time, which helped to congest the site.
``This is an extremely popular site and we're working to get it back online,'' said Chuck Gibilisco, watchable wildlife coordinator.
Prior to the Internet overload, EagleCam already was experiencing difficulties with its close-up camera. The miniature camera near the nest had been projecting blurred images ever since one of the feeding eagles flung a scrap of fish entrails at the camera lens.
Along with the interruption of EagleCam, a similar SalmonCam has been temporarily shut down and implementation of other planned WildWatch Cams will be delayed. Archived video of state animals and other wildlife-watching information can be seen on the Internet at www.wa.gov/wdfw/wildwatch/.