Squirrel for Mayor was at the Victoria International Airport on June 24, 2025 for the Remote Sensing: Garry Oak Species Detection Project with the Garry Oak Meadow Preservation Society and Terra Remote Sensing to launch a Bell 206B3 Jet Ranger, equipped with a Phase One IXM-100 camera for aerial data acquisition to perform Garry oak species detection in developing a new approach to mapping Garry oak species presence using LiDAR and geoAI. By conducting species-specific detection analysis to form a species composition baseline, the project can enable future analysis opportunities that are Garry oak-specific. LiDAR was flown over the City of Victoria and the District of Saanich’s urban containment boundary. The goal of the project is to provide data to interested parties (e.g., environmental non-profits, researchers, community scientists, municipal staff, etc.), providing them with a new high bar in remote sensing data quality to innovate on the analysis front.
