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
- @ptynecki
- | Piotr
Software Engineer with 10+ years of experience in application design, development, testing and deployment. Highly experienced in Health Care, Life Science and BigData projects. Artificial Intelligence researcher (NLP, Computer Vision) with experience in Wildlife Conservation.
- 0 Resources
- 6 Discussions
- 4 Groups
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
- 1 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @mclapham
- | She/her
BearID Project
Conservation biologist using camera traps to develop automated methods of photoID
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @NicoLaur
- | He/Him
PhD Student in Disease Ecology, Taxonomy and biomonitoring in Central Africa
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 7 Groups
Prof at NC State University and Scientist at NC Museum of Natural Sciences
- 1 Resources
- 19 Discussions
- 4 Groups
Founder CEO Painted Dog Research trust. Committed to using science to drive conservation decisions, development of students and commu
- 0 Resources
- 13 Discussions
- 2 Groups
I am biologist, I have studied wild life and ethnobiology at Amazon and caimans in Brazil
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 10 Groups
- @AnnabelL
- | she/her
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 10 Groups
Michigan Natural Features Inventory (MNFI)
Wildlife ecologist
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 3 Discussions
- 11 Groups
Technologist & Wildlife Photographer at Google
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 3 Groups
Five articles that include conservation tech published at Mongabay
20 October 2022
*New closing date!* WILDLABS and Fauna & Flora International are seeking an early career conservationist for 12-month paid internship position to grow and support the Southeast Asia regional community in our global...
19 October 2022
The device could help scientists explore unknown regions of the ocean, track pollution, or monitor the effects of climate change.
26 September 2022
Careers
The Senior Conservation Technology Specialist will be responsible for providing technical advice and capacity development to GWP project teams on conservation technology, distilling challenges and lessons from project...
22 September 2022
The European Biodiversity Partnership Biodiversa+, co-funded by the European Union, has launched a call for research proposals on “Improved transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change for science and...
14 September 2022
At the Inria Sophia Antipolis - Méditerranée center. The project will pursue two different methodological goals: (1) explore the use of natural language bottlenecks describing visible traits or other visual...
1 September 2022
Boost cons tech capacity at an international NGO! Fauna & Flora International is offering a paid three-month internship to consolidate and share best practices for the application of emerging hardware and software...
26 August 2022
The Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Environmental Studies (WFE), SLU, Umeå, is looking for a postdoc with strong interests in wildlife conservation technology.
26 August 2022
Careers
Job opening at ARISE, an innovative program in the Netherlands to build a digital infrastructure for biodiversity data and services
19 August 2022
Are you creative, love new challenges and have experience developing software? The Wildlife Insights team is hiring! Join a diverse team of ecologists, data scientists, engineers and machine learning experts to protect...
10 August 2022
Press Release for International Tiger Day – July 29th, 2022: For the first time ever, wild tigers and their prey have been detected by AI-powered, cryptic cameras that transmit the images to the cell phones and...
5 August 2022
Careers
WCS Canada is seeking a Data Technician with a keen eye for detail to support its Wolverine Conservation Program. The Data Technician will be responsible for classifying wildlife photos taken with motion-sensor cameras...
29 July 2022
September 2024
October 2024
October 2023
event
35 Products
Recently updated products
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
---|---|---|---|---|
Hello @Frank_van_der_Most , Thank you for your reply. The idea of the MSc course would be to cover the use of conservation technology (camera traps, satellites, UAVs,... |
|
Build Your Own Data Logger Community, AI for Conservation, Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Biologging, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Acoustics, Community Base, Connectivity, Conservation Dogs, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Drones, Early Career, Earth Observation 101 Community, East Africa Community, eDNA & Genomics, Emerging Tech, Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Footprint Identification Technique (FIT), Human-Wildlife Conflict, Marine Conservation, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps, Sustainable Fishing Challenges, Wildlife Crime, Women in Conservation Tech Programme (WiCT) | 4 seconds ago | |
Hi everyone! Have you ever experienced time drift in the old Bushnell NatureView Cam HD? If so, is there a way to fix it? The camera... |
|
Camera Traps | 4 days 4 hours ago | |
Thank you for elaborating, @evebohnett ! And for the heads ups! |
+22
|
Camera Traps, Drones | 3 weeks ago | |
[oops, the same reply got submitted twice and there doesn't seem to be a "delete" button] |
|
AI for Conservation, Camera Traps | 1 month ago | |
Hi @zhongqimiao ,Might you have faced such an issue while using mega detectorThe conflict is caused by:pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.13 depends on torch==1.10.1pytorchwildlife 1.0.2.12... |
+6
|
AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Open Source Solutions | 1 month ago | |
Thanks, and that's a match! All these pictures are from a lab experiment and formated with AmphIdent. We took weekly belly pictures of several larvae. The aim of this google... |
|
Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 month ago | |
Hi, this is pretty interesting to me. I plan to fly a drone over wild areas and look for invasive species incursions. So feral hogs are especially bad, but in the Everglades there... |
|
AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Open Source Solutions, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 month ago | |
Hi everyone!@LashaO and @holmbergius from the Wild Me team at ConservationX Labs gave a superb talk at last month's Variety Hour,... |
|
AI for Conservation, Camera Traps | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Can't beat Dan's list! I would just add that if you're interested in broader protected area management, platforms like EarthRanger and SMART are amazing, and can integrate... |
|
Data management and processing tools, Camera Traps, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Saul Greenberg is a great guy! He has made a few very useful videos regarding the Timelapse/Megadetector integration:https://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/grouplab/uploads/... |
+14
|
Camera Traps | 1 month 1 week ago | |
EcoAssist is an application designed to streamline the work of ecologists dealing with camera trap images. It’s an AI platform that... |
|
Software and Mobile Apps, AI for Conservation, Camera Traps | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
Hi @Alasdair Great to hear from you! Thanks for the comment and for those very useful links (very interesting). And for letting @Rob_Appleby know. I can't wait to hear... |
|
Emerging Tech, Camera Traps, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 month 4 weeks ago |
International Congress for Conservation Biology
16 January 2023 2:53pm
Best Camera Trap Models Database: Input Needed
9 February 2021 8:39pm
5 August 2022 2:00pm
Hi Shawn,
I am looking into camera traps to use for an arboreal project in Panama, I am really interested in your experience of mounting camera traps up trees. The photo shows an interesting mount, did you make it yourselves?
How were the seals on the Brownings? I have been tempted to go for reconyx cause they have really good o-ring seals but they may just be too pricy so looking for a reliable alternative.
Anything you can share will be useful.
Cheers
Lucy
15 January 2023 2:08pm
Hi Ellie, did you compile this information and is it avaiblable somewhere?
I need to upgrade the camera system in Baiboosun Nature Reserve Kyrgyzstan and this info would be of great help.
Please check: www.baiboosun.com
Thanks, Luciano.
New issue of BES' Ecological Solutions and Evidence Journal
13 January 2023 3:43am
The British Ecological Society's journals always have topics that will interest our conservation tech community - in this particular issue, you'll find research on a large-scale camera trapping effort to monitor mammals, as well as the role of citizen science in data analysis for that project.
New paper - An evaluation of platforms for processing camera-trap data using artificial intelligence
13 January 2023 12:14am
We review key characteristics of four AI platforms—Conservation AI, MegaDetector, MLWIC2: Machine Learning for Wildlife Image Classification and Wildlife Insights—and two auxiliary platforms—Camelot and Timelapse—that incorporate AI output for processing camera-trap data. We compare their software and programming requirements, AI features, data management tools and output format. We also provide R code and data from our own work to demonstrate how users can evaluate model performance.
New paper - Real-time alerts from AI-enabled camera traps using the Iridium satellite network: A case-study in Gabon, Central Africa
13 January 2023 12:12am
Sending real-time alerts from ecological sensors such as camera traps in areas with poor data connectivity is complex and involves integrating a large number of potentially complex hardware and software components. Our results demonstrate that these components can be successfully integrated to achieve reliable, near real-time alerts from camera traps under challenging field conditions.
Conservation Technology Intern (Vietnam)
11 January 2023 5:00pm
Help : Topics in Remote Sensing and Management of Protected Areas
10 January 2023 11:04am
PhD position (m/f/d) in Insect Ecology and Conservation
9 January 2023 12:53pm
Job: Conservation Technology Specialist (PT)
6 January 2023 12:49am
Otter video help!
5 September 2022 6:57pm
7 September 2022 6:12pm
Thank you for the response! I'm not sure how to find that out. It says MP4. Is that what you're looking for?
21 December 2022 7:46pm
Did you get any further with this Britnee?
26 December 2022 6:54pm
No, I was never able to figure out how to send these to anyone on here. I was hoping to learn how to clear these videos up if possible!
Android smartphone app
22 December 2022 12:13am
Help - Innovative ways to track elephant movement
28 October 2022 4:50pm
4 November 2022 5:24pm
Why would you want to avoid alerting the rangers ?
You don't need high tech for this; elephants leave very obvious tracks and sign.
7 November 2022 12:52am
Hi Tyler,
Would like to introduce you to Ceres Tags products
- Ceres Tags products come in boxes of 5, 10 and 24.
- There are some software partners such as Earthranger, Mapipedia and possibly CiboLabs that would be able to assist you with your mapping vegetation requirements
- Ceres Tag does not require any towers, base stations and infrastructure. This allows you to see any movements from the heard outside of their normal herd (boundary alerts), and you will not be disturbing any of the flora and fauna with infrastructure set up.
- For the timing you are looking at, Ceres Wild pings directly to satellite 24 times a day. For Ceres Trace and Ceres Ranch there are 4 within 24 hours. Taking into consideration, when you set up alert areas, you will get them directly to your phone/laptop via your software of choice
- Ceres Ranch is a reusable tag that has just been launched. Use it on this project, remove the tag and then use the tag on your next project
- The software you choose will assist with the history of your animal movements. Ceres Tag is integrated with 11 software partners and in-development with 18 software partners https://cerestag.com/pages/software-partners
- Understanding it is a short-term project, you would be able to use Ceres Tags products without the additional expense of setting up and removing infrastructure- towers, gateways
- With Ceres Tag, you are purchasing the box of tags and picking a suitable software to deliver the information you require. On average, a box of 10 Ceres Trace Tags, is the same as 1 LoRaWAN tower.
14 December 2022 10:49am
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
Post Doctoral Fellow - Computer Vision/Arctic Avian Ecology
7 December 2022 4:21am
Camera Trap repairs - suggestions?
26 September 2022 2:15pm
5 December 2022 4:39pm
Thanks a million, @Rob_Appleby @Freaklabs @StephODonnell ! Apologies for the delay on my end - I was busy shifting to (and settling into life on) Príncipe island. A live trouble-shooting session would be very much appreciated, thank you! Given that it is December, and I suspect everyone will be off for holidays quite soon, would sometime in January work? The week of the 9th? Or possibly the week after, depending on when everybody is back from hols. In the meantime, I will check what we have on our field site (for future reference), as well as if we have a multimeter in our Cambridge office.
Many thanks again, and I look forward to hearing from you on when is a good time in January for this.
Kind regards,
Asiem
5 December 2022 4:40pm
Thanks a lot for this, @Colin_Cook !
5 December 2022 4:41pm
Thanks a lot, @rcz133 ! I will certainly check your blog out (thanks heaps for pointing me in its direction).
New paper - Snapshot of the Atlantic Forest canopy: surveying arboreal mammals in a biodiversity hotspot
28 November 2022 4:11pm
Arboreal camera trapping confirms occurrence of the thin-spined porcupine and several critically endangered species in Caparaó National Park, Brazil.
Cameratrap flash overexposure
25 October 2022 11:04am
4 November 2022 5:27pm
I have not used Bushnell camera traps for quite a while, so this may not apply, but most makes have a flash intensity adjustment. If you have already tried that without success then opaque or translucent tape over the LEDs will do the same job.
4 November 2022 7:55pm
We have used cut pieces of translucent milk jug plastic to make a flash attenuator. Stack as many as you need to reduce exposure and tape on.
18 November 2022 7:09pm
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
Automatically tag animals, people and vehicles in cameratrap images and sort them in subfolders
17 November 2022 8:11pm
Camera Issues
2 October 2022 6:57pm
6 November 2022 7:05pm
Thank you so much! this was great information! I will look into the SD card. The SD cards were working fine, but they have stopped. If they were incompatible they wouldn't have worked at first, right?
As for batteries, I am confused. Our photographer at work said lithium doesn't do well in the weather and temperature changes. On here it sounds like you guys are saying lithium is better then alkaline (which the user manual also says to use), who do I listen to?? And how do I find lithium batteries that fit the cameras?
7 November 2022 7:39am
Hi Britnee,
Sometimes cards do just stop working/become incompatible. It could be a firmware glitch, but it's a bit like how a USB thumb drive can stop being recognised in a PC sometimes. I'd try a good quality card no larger than 32GB and with a class 10 rating, format it in the camera and then test it. You could also try formatting the cards that previously worked and trying them again.
Lithium batteries can indeed suffer in the cold (how cold is getting there?), but alkalines are, generally-speaking, a poorer choice all around. Are you using the best quality Duracell or Energizer alkalines? They might be up for the task. You could also consider a rechargeable sealed lead acid or gel battery. They suffer a little in really cold weather (all batteries do to some degree I think), but you could compensate by getting a higher-than-necessary capacity model (for example, double what you might need for a normal deployment). You mostly just need to make or order the correct lead to plug the battery into the camera. It should say somewhere in the manual what connector it uses, but it's usually something like a 1.7mm DC plug (e.g.
CUI Devices PP-013
PP-013 CUI Devices DC Power Connectors DC Power Plugs & Audio Plugs datasheet, inventory, & pricing.
Mouser Electronics) but you'll have to double-check.
Cheers,
Rob
10 November 2022 11:55pm
Perfect, thank you so much!
Underwater Camera Trap Video Confirms 1,100-Mile (1800-km) Swim of Tagged Great White Shark
25 October 2022 10:20am
New conservation tech articles from Mongabay
20 October 2022 7:45pm
Conservation Technology Intern (Vietnam)
19 October 2022 9:22am
Feedback Wanted: Security Enclosures
19 December 2018 9:41am
15 July 2022 9:50pm
(Not sure how I missed this thread earlier).
I think different usage models lead to different security box enclosures. E.g:
1. High Risk Locations: You need the camera to be in a particular location, dictated by something other than optimal theft deterrence, for a long time. Or your site features very large animals (elephants). Here it seems like you pay the price (in weight) to make the thing as secure as possible (including on steel pole sunk into concrete!).
2. Low Risk/Exploratory: You have flexibility on where to place the camera, perhaps aimed at capturing specific animals or behavior, and can place the camera to try to make it less conspicuous to thieves. Also, you may be changing the location frequently. Finally, rules associated with the site may limit disturbance. Here, you'd like some protection, but you'd like to reduce weight and impact to the site.
We do a lot of (2). For this, we use camera-specific, relatively thin gauge, two-piece commercial steel enclosures -- e.g. from CamLockBox.com. These enclosures feature 1/4" holes in the back for securing to a tree; and methods for using a padlock and/or a cable lock to secure the camera in the box. These do a very good job protecting from most animals (bears, not elephants), and deter opportunistic homo sapiens.
13 October 2022 9:35am
Hi all,
Thank you for all your insights. I think @rcz133 has summed it up nicely: security enclosure design depends on the required usage.
I've tried to go for a design that I hope will work in most deployment scenarios. It should provide good mechanical protection from animals and if locked up properly should deter opportunistic theft as proper tools would be needed to get in.
Thanks to Cambridge Design Partnership, I now have a finished design and will be having some built for testing in the next few weeks.
The final specifications were:
- 16 gauge stainless steel.
- The enclosure is made of two parts that are easy to place together into a whole.
- The two enclosure parts fit together tightly with mechanical retention.
- The two enclosure parts are locked together by a padlock and/or a python lock.
- When using a python lock this also locks the camera into the enclosure.
- When locked the enclosure cannot be pried apart with a screwdriver or knife.
- The enclosure locking point positioning makes it difficult for the padlock to be bolt cropped.
- It is easy to place the camera into the enclosure so that it aligns with all lock points and apertures.
- The enclosure securely holds the camera in place with minimal horizontal movement using internal guides or fixtures.
- The bottom half of the enclosure with the camera inserted can be affixed to a tree with a strap or python lock before the top half of the enclosure is attached.
- The enclosure can be affixed to a tree using a strap, python lock or 1/4" mounting screws points.
- The enclosure allows water to easily exit through holes in the bottom and does not allow it too pool in the corners.
- The enclosure provides some cover above the lens aperture to provide sun screening and rain protection to the lens.
- The enclosure is powder coated in a matt colour scheme of dark green or brown for ease of camouflaging.
Once I've got the prototype enclosures I am keen to put them through their paces and do some testing to destruction to find their weaknesses.
If anyone has any tests they would like to see performed please let me know in the thread.
Thanks,
Sam
18 October 2022 2:54pm
This looks like a great spec. Looking forward to seeing final design.
Rainforest SigFox available for use
26 August 2022 6:09pm
26 September 2022 10:20pm
Hi Roland,
This is really amazing, great to hear about your set-up! I'm just wondering what the overall cost was to set up this system? Just thinking in terms of setting up something similar in other parks and what they should expect with regard to price. Would also be great to hear about the overall effort, e.g., hours/team members required. It would be great to have this act as a blueprint for other organizations/research stations wishing to deploy a similar system within their respective national parks/areas/etc.!
10 October 2022 8:33am
Hi Rolland,
Interested too, but why did you choose SigFox (a private network) rather than LoRa (open network)?
Sigfox currently has some financial troubles that, don't know what it will become in the long term.
18 October 2022 11:55am
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 $2000 for a year's lease + deposit. We covered solar power. There are also some 'minigateways' you can purchase but I don't know how they compare in range (plan to test). So far we are happy with the performance, in that it has worked consistency with no outages (once we stabilized the power supply). I think the annual costs are about $10 per tag. We are working on a paper that will describe this in more detail. So far just using for tracking tags but also looking at a trap sensor.
cheers
Roland
MegaDetector on Edge Devices ??
19 February 2021 12:30am
30 August 2022 5:05am
Has anyone tried running the MegaDetector model through an optimizer like Amazon SageMaker Neo? It can reduce the overall memory footprint and possibly speed up inference on devices like Raspberry Pi and Jetson.
27 September 2022 10:19am
Great work Luke @sheneman! Having a relatively lightweight bit of hardware to run MDv5 on will open up opportunities for many more people. The upfront financial cost of a Jetson Nano is an order of magnitude less than a computer with a beefy GPU.
I haven't used any of the Nvidia edge devices yet. Do you think it would be possible for someone to make a disk image with MDv5 pre installed to lower the entry barrier of learning a new system, installing software, environments and packages etc.?
A difficulty I have seen for some projects is not having access to or not having internet bandwidth to utilize cloud compute services. If anyone needs to churn through camera trap image processing in a remote field station this may now be possible!
10 October 2022 12:27pm
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 work.
Multi-SD card reading hubs
2 October 2022 3:46am
4 October 2022 2:04am
Good point and nice link. My USB 3.0 (errr USB 3.1 Gen 1) portable HDD gets a real read speed of 133 MBps or ~1Gbps. The theoretical max is 5 Gbps but I think the speed is limited by processor used by the HDD/USB bridge controller. Most SD card readers may be more limited even if the SD card can handle higher data rates. That may be why it could be best to just use the multi-port device from SanDisk.
7 October 2022 4:35pm
Jamie,
I have been using a 12-card Lexar Professional Workflow system for several years to process images from 24 trail cameras. The system has 4 bays, with 3 card readers per bay. I wrote software to automatically download and rename the images using metadata read from the info banner burned into the images by the camera. (Alternatively, the software can use the Exif metadata attached to the image.) The software is described in a recent Wildlife Society Bulletin:
TWS Journals
Camera trap time-lapse recordings are useful for understanding animal activity patterns, but they can generate large amounts of data that require time-intensive processing and storage. Machine learni...
The Wildlife SocietyThe software is available on github:
GitHub - hiltonml/camera_trap_tools: Tools for managing camera trap time-lapse recordings
Tools for managing camera trap time-lapse recordings - hiltonml/camera_trap_tools
GitHubDon't be put off by "time-lapse recordings" - it works on still images also.
Regards,
Mike Hilton
8 October 2022 12:22am
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 naming the SDCards prior to use and scripts take care of the transfer. The scripts may be written up in the audiomoth guide but the kitzes lab have this on github (although it may be mac specific)
New paper: "Examining primate community occurrence patterns in agroforest landscapes using arboreal & terrestrial camera traps"
30 September 2022 8:03pm
Authors examine occurrence patterns of 7 primate species in agroforests in Guinea-Bissau. Arboreal camera traps detected all 7 species, terrestrial cameras detected 5. Heterogeneous spatial responses amongst primates across the agroforest landscape.
New paper: Battery-free wireless imaging of underwater environments
29 September 2022 3:22pm
'The low-power camera uses power from harvested acoustic energy and communicates colour images wirelessly via acoustic backscatter.' - https://twitter.com/NaturePortfolio/status/1574863768714100738?s=20&t=d…
Most interesting images / sightings 'caught on camera'
12 August 2022 2:50pm
26 August 2022 12:07pm
No - the trap was in their path and they just walked through it. I've now moved it to a place they can't go. The biggest threat to the moths is from pied currawongs. I schedule the trap so it shuts off at least two before sunrise to try to avoid them feasting on the larger insects.
29 August 2022 6:18pm
At first I was finding wings below the screen in the morning when I put our units out. So I put a game camera on the units to see what was feeding and when. I found three bird species, likely 3 individuals, quickly found it to be a good bird feeder- Song Sparrow (most frequent), House Wren, and this Tufted Titmouse. I changed my units to turn off about 1.5 hours before dawn and that worked! Nearly all the moths left the scene before the birds came to visit.
26 September 2022 10:43pm
My most prized camera trap image - a hummingbird caught on camera!
Camera trapping in the tropics
22 August 2022 4:44pm
26 August 2022 12:17pm
26 August 2022 6:15pm
Hi @laydent ,
I am just an occasional and non-professional user of a camera trap in Costa Rica. I have not experienced destruction of the camera trap by animals, so far. The trap never caught a monkey, but it did catch raccoons, an ocelot, pizotes and olingos. They all left the camera trap alone.
Rain would impact animal behavior obviously and possibly result in false positive triggering of the camera due to moving leaves and/or the rain itself. On the latter, one might try different sensitivity settings to see how your particular camera responds.
Camera traps are supposedly water tight ( and mine has been ), but in the long run seals may erode ( direct exposure to the sun may speed that up ). Also, I am wondering if water tight means rain-water tight, leaving the possibility of air humidity coming into the trap and cause corrosion.
Sorry, but I can not recommend anything to your third point.
26 September 2022 10:40pm
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 down low, the lemurs won't come down that far. Neotropical primates are probably similar in that respect (at least compared to African/Asian primates such as baboons & macaques which are more terrestrial). The bigger issue than animals messing up cameras has been people stealing or interfering with them, so trying to put hem off-trail/hidden, locked onto large trees has been important.
I second the Kays et al paper that @Rolandisimo mentioned above as a great reference & starting point! There is also this paper on camera trap study design, this one on camera trap placement bias and this one on strategic camera trap placement for evaluating different metrics.
In terms of wet vs dry season, you'll want to make sure that water doesn't accumulate where you're putting up the cameras such that they would potentially become submerged in a flash flood or river-rising/overflowing situation, but you probably already know that :).
There have been many papers that have looked at the effect of seasonality with camera trap data, but the majority of them are with regard to the actual species activity pattern differences across seasons rather than the effect of season on detection distance. You should consider what your species of interest's activity patterns are in different seasons and how this may impact detection probability. It may also be important in terms of strategically planning your sampling scheme. For example, the mouse & dwarf lemurs in Madagascar hibernate during the cold/dry season so it's not useful to sample for them during those months.
9 April 2022 11:46am
Many thanks, "mactadpole" for the promising remarks concerning the Browning Dark Ops Pro XD dual-lens BTC-6PXD:
"...we are extremely pleased with the BTC-6PXD. We went with these because they only use 6 aa batteries and they were smaller/lighter than the BTC-8A."
Given the similarity between the western Ecuador conditions you describe and those we face in Costa Rica the Browning - 180$ from Amazon where 37 reviews are predominantly favourable - sounds like the camera for us. Your 12.2.2021 report is now over a year old, however. Please, has anything changed since then? Any other candidate we should consider?