scholarly journals Review: COVID-19 highlights the importance of camera traps for wildlife conservation research and management

2021 ◽  
Vol 256 ◽  
pp. 108984
Author(s):  
J. David Blount ◽  
Mark W. Chynoweth ◽  
Austin M. Green ◽  
Çağan H. Şekercioğlu
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 16736-16741
Author(s):  
Iliyasu Simon ◽  
Jennifer Che ◽  
Lynne Baker

Globally, colleges and universities are increasingly mandating sustainability and environmental protection into their practices.  To date, such institutions have focused their efforts on recycling and energy-use reduction and less on the management and conservation of wildlife and wildlife habitats. However, in an increasingly urbanizing world, well-managed campuses can provide habitat and even refuge for wildlife species.  On the campus of a sustainability-minded university in Nigeria, we used camera traps to determine the presence of wildlife and used occupancy modeling to evaluate factors that influenced the detectability and habitat use of two mammals for which we had sufficient detections: White-tailed Mongoose Ichneumia albicauda and Gambian Rat Cricetomys gambianus.  Our intent was to gather baseline data on campus wildlife to inform future research and make recommendations for maintaining wildlife populations.  We detected wildlife primarily within less-disturbed areas that contained a designated nature area, and the presence of a nature area was the key predictor variable influencing habitat use.  No measured variables influenced detectability.  This study supports other research that highlights the importance of undisturbed or minimally disturbed natural habitats on university campuses for wildlife, especially in increasingly built-up and developed regions.  We recommend that institutions of higher education devote greater resources to making campuses wildlife-friendly and increase opportunities for students to engage in campus-based wildlife research and conservation and other sustainability-related programs. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 139-151
Author(s):  
Nguyen Ai Tam ◽  
Nguyen Van Tay ◽  
Nguyen Thi Kim Yen ◽  
Ha Thang Long

Kon Ka Kinh National Park (KKK NP) is a priority zone for biodiversity protection in Vietnam as well as ASEAN. In order to survey the current fauna species diversity in the southern part of the KKK NP, we conducted camera trapping surveys in 2017, 2018, and 2019. 28 infrared camera traps were set up on elevations between 1041 to 1497 meters. In total, there were 360 days of survey using camera trap. As result, we recorded a total of 27 animal species of those, five species are listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN, 2020). The survey results showed a high richness of wildlife in the southern park region, and it also revealed human disturbance to wildlife in the park. The first-time camera trap was used for surveying wildlife diversity in the southern region of the KKK NP. Conducting camera trap surveys in the whole KKK NP is essential for monitoring and identifying priority areas for wildlife conservation in the national park.


AMBIO ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-313
Author(s):  
Jillian Knox ◽  
Kirstie Ruppert ◽  
Beatrice Frank ◽  
Carly C. Sponarski ◽  
Jenny Anne Glikman

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
EVERTON B. P. MIRANDA ◽  
CAIO F. KENUP ◽  
CHARLES A. MUNN ◽  
NIKI HUIZINGA ◽  
NICKOLAS LORMAND ◽  
...  

Summary Tourism can be a powerful tool for wildlife conservation if well controlled and responsibly managed. Apex predators constitute particularly attractive subjects for tourism, but simultaneously they may generate conflict with local communities. Harpy Eagles Harpia harpyja are the largest eagle species and are highly sought-after by ecotourists. The last stronghold of the Harpy Eagle is the Amazon Forest, which is being deforested for cattle ranching. We tested methods for developing Harpy Eagle ecotourism as a potential tool to harmonize these issues. Using camera traps, we collected data on timing of Harpy Eagle visits to their nests, as well as on probabilities of viewing an eagle. Harpy Eagles can only be seen predictably during the first 12 of the 30–36 month nest cycle. In nests with nestlings (up to 5–7 months), adults are visible on a daily basis, and this period lasts 16.6% of the nesting cycle, demanding a minimum of 13, 17, and 26 nests to have at least one nest with a nestling on 90%, 95% and 99% of the days. After this 5–7 month window, we found that two and 4.16 days spent at nests afforded high probabilities of sighting a fledgling or adult eagle, respectively. Harpy Eagles were mainly active at the beginning and the end of the day. Activity core lasted 6.5 decimal hours for adults, peaking at 10h00, and 7.45 decimal hours for fledged eagles, peaking at 15h00. Our results demonstrate that Harpy Eagles fit several criteria for a viable wildlife attraction: predictable in activity and location, viewable, and diurnal, even though at the same time they are considered a rarity. In a broader perspective, Harpy Eagle tourism shows every indication of being a significant tool for more robust rainforest conservation.


AMBIO ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (S4) ◽  
pp. 624-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Newey ◽  
Paul Davidson ◽  
Sajid Nazir ◽  
Gorry Fairhurst ◽  
Fabio Verdicchio ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Bonenfant ◽  
Ken Stratford ◽  
Stephanie Periquet

Camera-traps are a versatile and widely adopted tool to collect biological data in wildlife conservation and management. If estimating population abundance from camera-trap data is the primarily goal of many projects, what population estimator is suitable for such data needs to be investigated. We took advantage of a 21 days camera-trap monitoring on giraffes at Onvaga Game Reserve, Namibia to compare capture-recapture (CR), saturation curves and N-mixture estimators of population abundance. A marked variation in detection probability of giraffes was observed in time and between individuals. Giraffes were also less likely to be detected after they were seen at a waterhole with cameras (visit frequency of f = 0.25). We estimated population size to 119 giraffes with a Cv = 0.10 with the best CR estimator. All other estimators we a applied over-estimated population size by ca. -20 to >+80%, because they did not account for the main sources of heterogeneity in detection probability. We found that modelling choices was much less forgiving for N-mixture than CR estimators. Double counts were problematic for N-mixture models, challenging the use of raw counts at waterholes to monitor giraffes abundance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heebok Park ◽  
Anya Lim ◽  
Tae-Young Choi ◽  
Seung-Yoon Baek ◽  
Eui-Geun Song ◽  
...  

AbstractKnowledge of abundance, or population size, is fundamental in wildlife conservation and management. Camera-trapping, in combination with capture-recapture methods, has been extensively applied to estimate abundance and density of individually identifiable animals due to the advantages of being non-invasive, effective to survey wide-ranging, elusive, or nocturnal species, operating in inhospitable environment, and taking low labor. We assessed the possibility of using coat patterns from images to identify an individual leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), a Class II endangered species in South Korea. We analyzed leopard cat images taken from Digital Single-Lense Relfex camera (high resolution, 18Mpxl) and camera traps (low resolution, 3.1Mpxl) using HotSpotter, an image matching algorithm. HotSpotter accurately top-ranked an image of the same individual leopard cat with the reference leopard cat image 100% by matching facial and ventral parts. This confirms that facial and ventral fur patterns of the Amur leopard cat are good matching points to be used reliably to identify an individual. We anticipate that the study results will be useful to researchers interested in studying behavior or population parameter estimates of Amur leopard cats based on capture-recapture models.


Author(s):  
Monika Egerer ◽  
Sascha Buchholz

AbstractCities are home to both a majority of the world’s human population, and to a diversity of wildlife. Urban wildlife conservation research and policy has importantly furthered ecological understanding and species protection in cities, while also leveraging wildlife conservation to connect people to urban nature. Thus, urban wildlife conservation intersects conservation research, conservation policy, and the general public in cities worldwide. Yet, species that are often framed as “urban wildlife” are often of higher trophic levels, including birds and mammals that serve as “flagship” species for public support. Other forms of urban life including plants and invertebrates are often largely ignored, producing a normative urban wildlife concept that may bias urban wildlife conservation research and policy, and sentiment in the general public. To develop new strategies in urban wildlife conservation for the urban era, we need to move towards a more inclusive and holistic framing of urban wildlife for both research and the public. In this article, we discuss the normative framing of urban wildlife and how this framing may bias urban conservation efforts, and argue for a holistic approach to urban wildlife inclusive of all life forms for future research, publicity and policy interventions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document