A grey fox, "Urocyon cinereoargenteus", caught on camera by Roland Kays with the Students Discover North Carolina project
Everyone loves the National Zoo’s PandaCams, offering endless opportunities to watch pandas in captivity eat, play, scratch, and sleep. But what if researchers had the same chance to observe and gather data on animals in the wild? Large-scale volunteer surveys conduct population studies on birds on a national scale, but no such equivalent exists for mammals.
Scientists at the Smithsonian and around the world are trying to change that by installing camera traps, remotely activated equipment fitted with motion sensors, in a variety of habitats. With the exception of morphological or genetic data, observers can learn a lot about a Small Asian Mongoose or a Southwest China Serow, for example, just from snapping a photo.
A single date-and-time-stamped image, or a series, can provide scientists with useful data about an animal’s location, external conditions, and other factors. When it comes to learning about wildlife, camera traps are crucial tools for scientists to capture information about animal behavior without intervention or disruption.
To create a national monitoring program for mammals, Bill McShea, a wildlife ecologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, and other Smithsonian scientists teamed with staff from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina State University, and the University of Missouri to create eMammal. An online system for collecting, storing, and sharing camera-trap data, eMammal is designed for scientists, citizen scientists, and anyone who wants to join in the fun and discovery of camera-trapping.
McShea discusses why camera-trap images are the virtual museum of the future, one that documents biodiversity for ages to come. By extending their capacity to watch and record, scientists now have the opportunity to see wildlife in ways they haven’t before, and to make informed decisions about ecosystems, conservation, and preservation.
Using candid creatures caught on camera, McShea highlights projects such as searching for sun bears and clouded leopards in Borneo and white-tailed deer and bobcats in Virginia, and explains how similar “expeditions” offer a glimpse of the future of wildlife monitoring.
Smithsonian Connections
Take a look at the images in eMammal’s Smithsonian data repository, as well as explore current camera-cam projects across the world on the site.
