Conservation International (Team Network) Meeting – Jorge Ahumada and Eric Fegraus

Tropical Ecology, Assessment and Monitoring (Team) Network was formed by Conservation International (CI) amongst other conservation issues, to collect and distribute camera trap data on trends in biodiversity across the globe. The team of scientists and local operatives is gathering an enormous data set on medium to large sized mammals in some of the world’s most precious tropical forests. They are using Reconyx camera traps although they have had some problems with water leakage in the first Hyperfire cameras, although it seems this problem may have been overcome by Reconyx. Moisture is a big problem and they are now using 6 x rechargeable batteries and using desiccant in the top battery chamber.

The TEAM Network has been very active in developing standards and protocols for their surveys and best of all have an amasing software package called DeskTEAM that has revolutionised uploading SIM card data direct from the card to a storage and identification program. This program extracts all the EXIF data directly to a system that then allows you to code your data and export to a preferred program for further analysis. Eric Fegraus and colleagues have just published a paper on the system in Ecological Informatics which should be available soon. I was very impressed with the program and its capabilities and the DeskTeam are keen to expand the program even further. I hope to be a conduit in this regard.

Team Network are currently carrying out studies in 17 locations and plan to expand that 40 sites across the globe.

Fig Extracted from TEAM Network brochure.

I see some great opportunities for building partnerships with Desk Team, especially in regards to camera trapping research, analysis and collaborations – and I believe many other groups have already expressed interest in establishing links to the group.  I was very impressed with the work Team Network has done and was encouraged by the openness and sharing principles that Jorge and his colleagues have adopted.

Sadly my next meeting with Bill O’Shea had to be cancelled for family reasons so its off to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to meet with camera manufacturers. I am very disappointed that I had lodged my travel plans with the Churchill Fellowship before I was introduced to Roland Kays – so close Roland yet so far, I’m very disappointed we won’t get to meet, in hindsight this was less that ideal. I hope we can have a skype meeting while I am in the US.

The Camera Trapping questionnaire has fielded 90 responses and I have now uploaded the data to analyse the answers – interesting but I had hoped for hundreds of responses.

More soon ……………………

Camera Trapping Meetings in the Netherlands

I have spent the last week in Holland with Erwin van Maanen who is an independent Scientist and active team member of the Anatolean Leopard Foundation and National Pine Marten research fraternity.  Erwin also organised for me to spent time with red fox expert cum fauna specialist Jaap Mulder and fellow Pine Marten researchers Chris Achterberg, Fokko Bilijam and the members of the Pine Marten Project Group (Achtezhoel-Liemers) – probably spelled incorrectly, including members from the National Monument Service (the Dutch equivalent of a National Park Service). I gave two presentations to the Dutch crew and received some excellent feedback.

The Netherlands is a very flat and fragmented landscape with few spots inaccessible to humans. These forest patches are the target of surveys to determine presence and absence of Pine Marten, Badgers, Foxes, Weasels, Pole Cats and Stone Martens etc.  Most of the surveys are being carried out by volunteers and by teams who are under-funded and subsequently they have to use cheaper equipment foe their presence/absence surveys. A range of camera traps have been used in Holland including Moultries, Scoutguards, Stealthcams and more recently Bushnells and Reconyx.

The locations of camera traps for Martens are mostly decided by searching for sign in the snow or for hollows and arboreal latrine sites on tree limbs. The teams are interested in searching for weasels but they are too small and quick for the cameras.  I did not meet anyone who uses stills in Holland – everyone is using video footage. I watched quite a lot of Pine Marten video and one alarming reoccurring behaviour is the behaviour of the animals to the camera IR flash, they skirt the edges of the flash projection on the ground. Its as if they se the outline of the core of the flash and deliberately avoid that area of ground.

Data is stored in a variety of ways although Erwin is developing a passport system for each animal including a record of the markings on the neck which are distinctive to the individual.  One of the challenges in photographing the neck of the martens is keeping the animals facing the camera long enough to get a clear image – after discussions Erwin is now going to try a few modifications to his active station to see if he can get better images. 

Jaap Mulder the Dutch fox expert is also using camera traps for a variety of species surveys including foxes and badgers.  He is currently radio collaring animals and using camera traps as a supplementary tool to gather behaviour data. Jaap is currently using Scoutguards but will soon be buying some Reconyx cameras for some badger research. He is also using cameras to evaluate the use of under-passes by wildlife. Another researchers, Chris Achterberg is also using camera traps to monitor badger sets and martens, he is also using video functions only. Chris has been using scoutgaurads but prefers Stealthcam for its clear video footage. He has noticed some animal behaviour responses to cameras, particularly with badgers but he believes they become accustomed to the IR flash after a short period. 

Overall the issues in the Netherlands are similar to those facing us all, that is that no one camera trap model is perfect and cost is a limiting factor in selection of appropriate models. A variety of different software programs are being used to store and manage the data collected – Lightroom, VLC Media and Codec K-Lite. 

This week has been very interesting seeing the challenges of camera trapping small mammals from Europe and I even had a chance to contribute some thoughts to the Dutch efforts to survey for an elusive wolf.

Thank you to everyone that I met in The Netherlands but especially Erwin van Maanen and his family Annemiek and Merle for looking after me in Deventer and being wonderful hosts.

KORA Switzerland

I have spent the last week in Bern Switzerland with the KORA group hosted by Fridolin Zimmerman who are primarily using camera trapping for Lynx research and monitoring but in recent times trying to gather data on wolf sightings. KORA has a very competent group of biologists who are involved in some very interesting and controversial wildlife management issues. The group has been using camera traps for many years (since 1997) and have also attempted to build their own camera traps. They now mainly use Cuddeback Capture and Reconyx although they have recently acquired the new Cuddeback Attack to trial. They still have some CamTracker that they modified and still use. Camera sets mostly comprise two Cuddeback almost facing each other because they need to gather data on both flanks for identification purposes. Their survey design is a grid based approach at 2.5 km² across the whole of Switzerland. Surveys are obviously limited to some extent by access during colder months and breeding season.

KORA has their own data base that is used for coding and storing all their data and they use Wild ID http://www.conservationresearch.co.uk/Flank_extract_video.htm by Lex Hiby to identify existing animals detected by camera traps.

One of the KORA students (Elias Pesenti) has just submitted a neat Thesis comparing 3 methods of density estimation based on their camera trapping data. They found that the spatially explicit mark recapture model plus using habitat use model data gave accurate estimates of Lynx density.

We also had the opportunity to brain storm ideas for the ultimate camera trap and refined some thoughts on functionality that would help zoologist camera trappers. One of the intern students from Slovakia (Jakub Kubala) is trialling the use of Scoutguard 550 and the new Bushnell Trophy Cam on Lynx and Bear, he reported some problems with clarity of images from Scoutguards and prefers the Bushnell’s. 

I found this week to be very informative and I also had the chance to set some camera traps at altitudes of 2000 metres to experience the field challenges posed by studying alpine species. A stand out feature for me has been the importance of understanding your equipment and making sure you have tools that are fit for purpose, and how Australia is not the only market for white flash camera traps.

Thank you to everyone at KORA for hosting me all week in particular Fridolin Zimmerman (and Laure) for their wonderful hospitality and efforts in making my week in Switzerland very rewarding.

Zoological Society London

I have had two productive days with Marcus Rowcliffe and Chris Carbone from the ZSL Institute. On Day 1 I gave an hour seminar on our research to about 20 staff and Marcus, Chris and myself had an interesting discussion about our research objectives. There are a lot of staff using camera traps in the RZS and I was interested to see some amasingly challenging research sites including marine camera trapping. The focus of our Day 2 discussions was a workshop with about 12 camera trappers and each gave some very interesting overviews of their challenges. Marcus presented his thoughts on the Random Encounter Model he has developed with his colleagues and how this analysis provides users with a valuable tool for interpreting data. In every presentation similar issues were raised and selection of camera traps and the importance of designing surveys well before launching into field work was a regular theme. DeerCam received some good reviews from users and balancing camera cost with funding resources was a big issue ie do I buy 80 cheap cameras and understand their limitation or do I buy 30 and have good equipment but less robust design ?



There were some interesting information presented on animal behavioural responses to cameras with some excellent footage from Mohammad Farhadinia of Iran showing leopard responses ! Their team has just received a batch of Panthera cameras so we look forward to hearing more about them.

Chris raised the ongoing issues of survey design and how we balance design with robustness of the data, as well as trying to simplify the REM so that it was user friendly to a range of users. We discussed the pros and cons of standard protocols and their was various reviews about how this would work in some countries. The same issues of data capture, coding and storage were widespread.

A key issue for me that was re-emphasised over and over again during this meeting period, was the importance of forming a web site for camera trapping research and the value of fostering greater opportunities for collaboration. In this short time I think we have established very well that Marcus, Chris and our Australian cohort have some great opportunities for joint projects to span the divide of north and south hemisphere projects. I hope this will be a common theme throughout the trip. We have already initiated a project that aims to provide valuable camera trapping tools to our colleagues and I look forward to developing this discussion. Overall I found the meetings very interesting and I hope the process was also useful to the people who attended the meetings. As usual time ran out and I was unable to talk to some of the participants for long enough, but we will resume through cyberspace.