discussion / Camera Traps  / 22 January 2024

Conservation Technology for Human-Wildlife Conflict in Non-Protected Areas: Advice on Generating Evidence

Hello,

I am interested in human-dominated landscapes around protected areas. In my case study, the local community does not get compensation because they are unable to provide evidence for the losses caused by the wildlife. I want to learn which technological devices can help generate evidence. I am thinking of placing camera traps in areas suggested by the local community. Also, exploring ways artificial intelligence can help create an automated system for sending alerts to community members. Is there a better way to work in this situation more systematically? 

Best,

Amit




This is an area where my system would do very well in:



 

 

https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-install

Also, as you mention areas dominated by humans, there is a high likelyhood that there will be enough power there to support this system, which provides very high performance and flexibility but it comes with a power and somewhat a cost cost.



Additionally, it's life blood comes with generating alerts and making security and evidence gathering practical and manageable, with it's flexible state management system.



Ping me offline if you would like to have a look at the system.

Hi Amit,

The most important thing is that the livestock owners contact you as soon as possible after finding the carcass. We commonly do two things if they contact us on the same day or just after the livestock was killed:

  1. Use CyberTracker (or similar software) on an Android smart phone to record all tracks, bite marks, feeding pattern and any other relevant signs of the reason for the loss with pictures and GPS coordinates. [BTW, Compensation is a big issue -- What do you do if the livestock was stolen? What do you do if a domestic animal killed the livestock? What if it died from disease or natural causes and was scavenged upon by carnivores afterwards?]
  2. In the case of most cats, they would hide the prey (or just mark it by covering it with grass or branches and urinating in the area). In this case you can put up a camera trap on the carcass to capture the animal when it returns to its kill (Reconyx is good if you can afford it - we use mostly Cuddeback with white flash). This will normally only work if the carcass is fresh (so other predators would not be able to smell it and not know where it is yet), so the camera only has to be up for 3-5 days max.

This is not really high-tech, but can be very useful to not only establish which predator was responsible (or if a predator was responsible), but also to record all the evidence for that.