Camera traps have been a key part of the conservation toolkit for decades. Remotely triggered video or still cameras allow researchers and managers to monitor cryptic species, survey populations, and support enforcement responses by documenting illegal activities. Increasingly, machine learning is being implemented to automate the processing of data generated by camera traps.
A recent study published showed that, despite being well-established and widely used tools in conservation, progress in the development of camera traps has plateaued since the emergence of the modern model in the mid-2000s, leaving users struggling with many of the same issues they faced a decade ago. That manufacturer ratings have not improved over time, despite technological advancements, demonstrates the need for a new generation of innovative conservation camera traps. Join this group and explore existing efforts, established needs, and what next-generation camera traps might look like - including the integration of AI for data processing through initiatives like Wildlife Insights and Wild Me.
Group Highlights:
Our past Tech Tutors seasons featured multiple episodes for experienced and new camera trappers. How Do I Repair My Camera Traps? featured WILDLABS members Laure Joanny, Alistair Stewart, and Rob Appleby and featured many troubleshooting and DIY resources for common issues.
For camera trap users looking to incorporate machine learning into the data analysis process, Sara Beery's How do I get started using machine learning for my camera traps? is an incredible resource discussing the user-friendly tool MegaDetector.
And for those who are new to camera trapping, Marcella Kelly's How do I choose the right camera trap(s) based on interests, goals, and species? will help you make important decisions based on factors like species, environment, power, durability, and more.
Finally, for an in-depth conversation on camera trap hardware and software, check out the Camera Traps Virtual Meetup featuring Sara Beery, Roland Kays, and Sam Seccombe.
And while you're here, be sure to stop by the camera trap community's collaborative troubleshooting data bank, where we're compiling common problems with the goal of creating a consistent place to exchange tips and tricks!
Header photo: ACEAA-Conservacion Amazonica
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Research scientist developing conservation technology in environmental monitoring and cultural preservation.
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Team lead for the ARISE Biocloud team, developing an infrastructure for biodiversity monitoring and digital species identification. Also, project lead for the Diopsis insect camera project.
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Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary
Technology Manager at Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary
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I'm a PhD candidate in the Responsive Environments Group, working on electronic systems for human and wildlife monitoring.
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Founder & Director of Tech 4 Conservation
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Communications for EarthRanger and Skylight
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Wildlife biologist interested in biodiversity monitoring and the conservation of mammals. Passionate photographer.
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TerrOïko
I am an ecological data engineer at Terroïko, where I work on OCAPI, a platform for semi-automatic camtrap data annotation, biodiversity data interoperability and biodiversity indicators.
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National Geographic is offering funding up to up to $50,000 for conservationists conducting research on how the pandemic has impacted wildlife and conservation work. If you are interested in researching aspects of the...
10 March 2021
Article
WildID is excited to share their new camera trap processing and detection tools with WILDLABS! Using machine learning to identify Southern African wildlife species in large quantities of camera trap data, WildID's tool...
8 March 2021
Based on one of the largest camera trap surveys ever attemped, Internet of Elephants' new mobile game Unseen Empire draws on the real field experiences and camera trap data sets of a single decade-long survey, giving...
8 March 2021
Article
Today we're celebrating the #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge by shining a spotlight on one of our favorite WILDLABS collaboration success stories: the BoomBox! This collaboration between Dr. Meredith Palmer, Jacinta ...
26 February 2021
Last year, Tim van Deursen and Thijs Suijten shared their new "Hack the Poacher" system with us, presenting a unique way to detect poachers in real-time within protected national parks. Read on to learn about their next...
29 January 2021
In this case study from WWF's Northern Great Plains Program, Black-footed Ferret Restoration Manager Kristy Bly discusses how infrared FLIR cameras help teams detect and monitor the highly endangered black-footed...
19 January 2021
WILDLABS member Meredith Palmer shared this great course module based around Snapshot Serengeti camera trap data, and developed for university biology courses. This material is ideal for introductory level biology...
25 November 2020
To celebrate the first Black Mammalogists Week (starting Sunday, September 13th), we talked to four of the amazing Black scientists behind this event! Find out what they had to say about their favorite (and most...
10 September 2020
Today, WWF conservation engineering intern Ashley Rosen shares insight into the process of redesigning a camera mount for FLIR thermal cameras used by rangers in the fight against poaching. Ashley's design will become a...
24 August 2020
Our first season of Tech Tutors may have wrapped, but the connections and collaborations from these episodes are still going strong! Today, we're sharing Tech Tutor presenter Laure Joanny's recap of the most important...
20 August 2020
Since 2016, ZSL’s Instant Detect team have been working on improving metal detecting sensors for anti-poaching. The team believe that using metal detecting sensors will provide a highly targeted detection of potential...
10 August 2020
In this case study from herpetologist Emily Taylor, we learn about the best methods and gear used to track snakes, lizards, and other reptiles and amphibians via radio-telemetry, and how these techniques have changed...
31 July 2020
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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I just came across this interesting paper in which seismic monotoring of animals like elephants was mentioned. This is the study refered to:Cheers,Lars |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Emerging Tech, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sensors | 1 year 5 months ago | |
Thanks a lot, @rcz133 ! I will certainly check your blog out (thanks heaps for pointing me in its direction). |
+4
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Camera Traps | 1 year 6 months ago | |
Hi @LucyHReaserRe I've found a couple of layers or three of athletic/sports tape does the trick. This kind of thing: Good luck,Rob |
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Camera Traps | 1 year 6 months ago | |
Hi, just wanted to let you know the existence of EcoAssist. It's a no-code interface which makes the use and installation of the... |
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Camera Traps | 1 year 6 months ago | |
Perfect, thank you so much! |
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Camera Traps | 1 year 6 months ago | |
This looks like a great spec. Looking forward to seeing final design. |
+5
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Camera Traps | 1 year 7 months ago | |
Hi Everyone,We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating. Getting a gateway cost us $... |
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Biologging, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Camera Traps, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Sensors | 1 year 7 months ago | |
Great work, unfortunately, I'm not familiar with programming but computer friendly enough to follow a good tutorial. I was wondering if you will share your findings?Thanks for the... |
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Camera Traps | 1 year 7 months ago | |
Have a look at @tessa_rhinehart 's TechTutors on scaling up acoustic surveys. This is addressed at 11 min: The "hexadecapus" is the hardware, but transfer is automated by... |
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Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools | 1 year 7 months ago | |
My most prized camera trap image - a hummingbird caught on camera! |
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Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Camera Traps | 1 year 8 months ago | |
I would agree that primates probably aren't your biggest concern, animal-destroyer wise. At least in the Malagasy rainforests, lemurs are highly arboreal so if you have trail cams... |
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Camera Traps | 1 year 8 months ago | |
Thanks so much!! |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Community Base, Data management and processing tools, Drones, eDNA & Genomics, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Remote Sensing & GIS, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 year 8 months ago |
Camera Trap Data Normalization Help
31 May 2023 2:45pm
16 June 2023 6:35pm
Absolutely, I am happy to provide it. Our objectives are 1) to improve the understanding of local and seasonal haul-out patterns, and the numbers of seals hauled out during daylight hours; 2) to investigate any haul-out patterns in relation to environmental factors.
We had 10 different cameras set up at two different survey areas (8 at one location and 2 at another). We are studying the two survey areas separately. At one of the locations there are 8 different survey sites within the area where seals haul-out, at the other location, there are 2 different survey sites within the area.
So far we have completed 3 survey seasons as well.
Let me know if there is anything else I can provide!
27 June 2023 6:03pm
Also, for more help, here is the link to the website where an old report is shown. Navy Marine Species Monitoring :: Time-lapse Camera Surveys of Pinnipeds in Southeastern Virginia
New collaboration network - Computer vision for insects
26 June 2023 2:36pm
Overview: Depth Sensing Technologies for Camera Traps
9 November 2021 3:06pm
22 February 2022 2:24pm
For the more computationally-inclined, the Project Zamba software can also be used as a python package and the project codebase is fully available on GitHub.
22 February 2022 2:24pm
@hikinghack @Nycticebus-scientia We just ran an open-source competition on this exact question! DrivenData is a small group of data scientists, and we partnered with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) and the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF) to compile enough hand-labeled data to apply machine learning to the depth problem. In your original post, this falls under the AI Prediction Based category. The code behind all of the top-performing models is freely available on GitHub. We're hoping to make these freely available in the future in the a more user-friendly way.
@JHughes to your point about motion sensor camera traps being continuously set off -our free, open-source web application called Zamba Cloud uses machine learning to automatically sort videos by either what animal they contain or whether they are blank. You just upload a set of videos, and the web application will output a list of labels for each video! This may not address the battery drainage problem, but can help with filtering out blank videos and identifying which actually captured animals.
25 June 2023 10:33pm
(apologies for joining this thread late) Has anyone tried using the LIDAR in one of the newer iPhones so-equipped as a trail cam trigger? (e.g. iPhone12 Pro), perhaps in conjunction with a nueral network that processes the depth map looking for animal triggers? (I know this is liable to be a power-hungry trigger, for now, just looking at a proof of concept)
Osa Conservation: A Multi-Tech Toolbox of Solutions
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22 June 2023 10:42am
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Camera Kits available for new Snapshot USA Participants
14 June 2023 2:20pm
16 June 2023 7:39pm
This is such a cool idea! We need an aussie/international version!
Best of luck with this year's survey!
Rob
Catch up with The Variety Hour: June 2023
16 June 2023 11:43am
Sustained Effort: Out with the New, In with the Old
![](/sites/default/files/2023-06/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-13%20at%206.04.17%20PM.png)
14 June 2023 10:00am
Cuddelink Camera Issue?
12 June 2023 4:33pm
Camera-trapping provides new insights on scent marking in the large-antlered muntjac
12 June 2023 5:30am
New insights into the behavior of the large-antlered muntjac, a critically endangered deer species in Southeast Asia, are revealed through camera-trapping, shedding light on scent marking as a communication method used by these secretive ungulates and its potential role in territoriality and mate assessment.
Wildlife Monitoring Engineer
8 June 2023 4:54pm
Camera Traps to monitor direct seeding reforestation
5 June 2023 10:17am
Looking for AI volunteer positions
24 May 2023 5:41am
24 May 2023 3:45pm
Hi Donya! You might check out the Conservation Tech Directory to see what projects/organizations/tools best align with your interests and skills.
Scientists step up hunt for ‘Asian unicorn’, one of world’s rarest animals
18 May 2023 6:25pm
The saola, also known as the 'Asian unicorn,' remains one of the world's most elusive and rare animals. Conservation organizations, such as the Saola Working Group, operating in Laos and Vietnam, are conducting extensive searches using camera traps and exploring new methods like training dogs to detect saola signs and developing rapid DNA field test kits in order to save this remarkable creature from extinction.
Camera trap pics of rare species in Vietnam raise conservation hopes
18 May 2023 6:17pm
Camera traps installed in Vietnam's Phong Dien Nature Reserve have yielded remarkable images of rare and endangered species, igniting optimism for biodiversity conservation in the region. Among the captivating photographs are sightings of muntjac deer, the crested argus, Annamite striped rabbit, and Owston's palm civet. The camera trap images serve as a testament to the presence of these elusive creatures, fueling hope for their conservation.
Mbaza AI recognized by UNESCO & new team member
17 May 2023 8:49pm
What are the waterfowls?
14 May 2023 3:26pm
Collar Tracking vs. Camera Traps for Monitoring Mexican Wolves
5 May 2023 9:08pm
This article compares and contrasts the success of their wolf monitoring efforts with both collars and camera traps. The camera traps were intended to help researchers identify individual wolves within the population, but they experienced difficulties identifying both uncollared wolves and those with marked collars.
Camera Trap Data Management Survey
3 May 2023 10:28pm
AI Animal Identification Models
30 March 2023 5:01am
20 April 2023 12:53am
Thanks Dan, that is very helpful. No zebras here but I did see four deer wandering through the streets this morning. Quite wild at times here!
I am totally willing to try an image classifier if it reports multiple objects it identifies in a scene. I will give this a go.
I think 1 fps would be quite acceptable actually, and in some perspective actually advantageous in reducing how much data is getting logged.
I tried upgrading my existing object detector model to YOLOv8 following the links you sent, but I don't think it is possible to upgrade the model on the framework I'm using (ml5js) so I think I will have to try a different framework.
Thank you.
25 April 2023 2:08pm
Hi David
It appears that you have been looking for existing models, however, most existing models are trained on either COCO or some other very generic dataset. So, if you want to identify just animals, you may be better off training your own model. It seems no one in this thread mentioned yet that it is possible to do transfer learning on existing models, which keeps most of the "visual part" of the model as is, but just changes the classification part so it can identify other things. This way you can take an existing model trained on COCO and in a fraction of the time it takes to train a full model, just retrain that for your animals.
Also have a look at your requirements for the inferencing stage. Some models take long in training but are superfast in inference and others are slow in both cases but very accurate, etc. If you want semi-realtime inferencing, you are probably looking at single shot detectors (SSD), and not RCNNs.
26 April 2023 7:34pm
Thanks Bas! I'll look into SSD vs RCNNs, I'd never heard of an SSD.
Video: Virginia Tech tracking bobcats to preserve wildlife
26 April 2023 2:45pm
Quick feature of Virgina Tech project using camera traps and biologgers to track bobcats, collecting data to inform human-wildlife coexistance efforts
Congo Basin activity?
30 March 2023 9:14pm
25 April 2023 5:08pm
greetings!
i sent you a PM regarding this, feel free to contact me however is most convenient for you -
regards,
chris
Indigenous groups working with camera traps in Latin America
19 April 2023 10:53pm
21 April 2023 1:27pm
Hello,
Happy to put you in contact with some of my grantees working in Mexico who have extensive experience in capacity building for indigenous communities focused in species monitoring, including: Eco-Creando Soluciones, AC, Bosque Antiguo, AC, Bioconciencia, AC. Let me know.
Best,
Amanda
21 April 2023 2:23pm
I've heard that Alianza Ceibo and Amazon Frontlines use camera traps in the Amazonian regions of Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru to monitor poaching and land encroachment. You can reach out to them directly or I can put you in touch with one of their program managers if you'd like (I only have her # and don't want to post her personal info directly on here though).
21 April 2023 8:22pm
Great, thank you both! I'll follow up for introductions/ contact info
Catch up with The Variety Hour: April 2023
21 April 2023 10:42am
Camera traps, AI, and Ecology
14 April 2023 10:08am
7 June 2023 9:42am
1 August 2023 10:46am
1 September 2023 8:06am
The 59th Annual Meeting of Illinois Chapter of The Wildlife Society
12 April 2023 5:24am
Analyze difference in time events in camera trap data
14 March 2023 9:50pm
24 March 2023 6:20pm
Adrían - You might try looking at the methods for analyzing temporal interactions described in these two papers. These will hopefully provide you a starting point into the literature. Best wishes - Russ
Rahel Sollmann. 2018. A gentle introduction to camera-trap data analysis. African Journal of Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.12557
Justin P Suraci, et al. 2022. Beyond spatial overlap: harnessing new technologies to resolve the complexities of predator–prey interactions. Oikos. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.09004
6 April 2023 3:49pm
Hi Adrián,
Are you looking at ways to categorize visits as independent? or the methodology and theory of independence?
If you simply want a way to categorize visits, software managing camera trap images sometimes have this option. For example, Camelot can assess independence based on a time threshold.
6 April 2023 6:24pm
Hi Adrián,
Bracis et al. {recurse} package in R allow those time between visits comparisons. I had problems running the package with my data, though.
Recommendations needed: software for collating camera trap images
25 October 2020 8:54pm
28 March 2023 9:32pm
Hey Sami! Not sure what their needs are at WildlifeInsights. But would love to contribute in any capacity. I'm a software developer with a Masters in Zoology and experience Wildlife research. I have worked on several project integrating with TensorFlow and other ML models-including ChatGPT. Any chance they are looking for folks to staff their venture? Cheers!
-Dévi
6 April 2023 12:12pm
Hi @StephODonnell , I don't know if it's just me, but the two bulleted links you posted above are broken?
6 April 2023 12:34pm
Ah yes, these must have broken when we moved over to our new site. They should work now - thanks for flagging!
Who's going to ESA in Portland this year?
31 March 2023 9:27am
4 April 2023 9:58am
That sounds great. I think you should encourage people to bring a bit of tech with them, can be a good conversation starter/ice-breaker
4 April 2023 4:04pm
Good idea! I've got a ransom assortment of different acoustic recorders I can bring along
5 April 2023 11:58pm
Indeed, I'll be there too! I like to meet new conservation friends with morning runs, so I will likely organize a couple of runs, maybe one right near the conference, and one somewhere in a nearby park where we can look for wildlife. The latter would probably be at an obscenely early hour, so we can drive somewhere, ideally see elk (there are elk within 25 minutes of Portland!), and still get back in time for the morning sessions.
16 June 2023 5:36pm
Hi Michelle,
it would be good to get some more information on your project. What question are you trying to answer? How many cameras did you have deployed? How many different study sites/haul-out areas are there?