EcoWorldly

As new camera technology becomes cheaper and better, rare animals in places like Peru’s rainforests may soon be photographed and documented more thanks to the efforts of wildlife biologists. These kinds of photographs are important because they can provide crucial evidence of where species of animals like jaguars roam, giving scientists, park managers, and conservation advocates the facts they need to argue for greater protection of specific habitats. It also gives conservation professionals knowledge of where to concentrate their efforts and research, and can likewise increase public awareness of interesting and endangered animal species.

In a paper published in the latest edition of Animal Conservation, researcher Mathias W. Tobler and several of his colleagues describe a study they conducted in an area of the rainforest in southeastern Peru. By experimenting with hidden “camera traps,” these scientists set out to inventory elusive, rarely seen large and medium-sized mammals that live in the Peru’s rainforests. What they discovered is both exciting and interesting.

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While using cameras to photograph wildlife for inventories is not new, it is unquestionably becoming more popular as the devices to do it become more durable, weather-resistant, affordable, and easier to disguise. Tobler and his fellow authors write that “despite years of research throughout the Amazon, there are few complete mammal inventories and our knowledge of the distributions of rare and elusive species is still poor.” They explain further that traditional techniques for inventorying which animals are present in a given ecosystem, such as identification of tracks and scat, direct observations, and trapping of animals often do not account for species of animals that are rare and/or low in their numbers in a certain area. For these reasons, they wanted to test out how well cameras could document animals in the rainforest, where cover is dense and many species are hard to observe.

How the Researchers Designed Their “Camera Traps”

To better understand which larger mammal species were living in their study area, the researchers set up 39 camera stations using a grid. The grid was made along a system of trails so that stations were accessible and evenly distributed at 2 km intervals within a 50 square km space (about 30 square miles). Each station contained two cameras, on both sides of the trail. This allowed for animals to be photographed from various angles. The cameras are known as Deercams, and use infrared sensors to detect when an animal passes by. For 60 days periods both in 2005 and 2006, the cameras were on 24 hours a day, taking photos every time an animal passed by. The researchers checked the cameras regularly to replace batteries and film.

Using the Camera Traps Proved to be a Very Successful Inventorying Strategy

Tobler and company write that “our cameras successfully registered 86% of the species known for the area during a period of only 2 months. Of the remaining species, all are extremely rare and are only known from one or two records in the study area.” They documented a total of 24 out of the 28 large and medium terrestrial mammal species thought to be in the area. This is particularly impressive given that they also mention that the 4 animals they missed were rarely seen and that “out of three published inventories from the same region… the sampling period for those three inventories were 2, 3, and 21 years and the total number of large- and medium-sized mammals reported were 19, 25, and 27, respectively. This shows the high efficiency of camera traps for rapid inventories.”

So Which Animals Were Most Commonly Photographed, and Which Were Those That Were Not Seen?

Over the two years of the study, some of the more photographed animals included the Lowland tapir, which was caught on camera 102 times and also the White-lipped Peccary (seen 210 times). Among cat species, jaguars were photographed 51 times, ocelots 46 times, pumas 25 times, margays 15 times, and jaguarundis proved the most elusive, only being photographed twice.

The four species of animals that were not photographed included the pacarana, the grison, the Southern naked-tailed armadillo, and the Bush dog.

Implications from the Research

While the authors note that the camera traps were extremely efficient and successful, they also mention that just because animals aren’t photographed does not mean they are not present. Depending on the behavior of an animal and its relative abundance, it might take a longer period of time to obtain a photo of that animal, as was the case say with the Bush dog in this study. It also suggests that while this inventorying technique works well in the Amazon, it is an imperfect tool.

One other important finding of the researchers was that it did not appear to be incredibly important to have a large amount of area to place the camera stations in, nor to have cameras spaced far apart. They do say though that having a high camera density is ideal and “it is important, however, to make sure that all major habitat types are covered because some species might be more abundant or even restricted to one habitat type.”

In the end, Mathias Tobler and his fellow researchers have shown that a new inventorying technique using camera traps worked well to inventory mammals in Peru’s rainforest. Given the recent lowering of costs and improvements in camera technology, hopefully their example and those of others will help other conservationists around the world to better understand the location of important and rare animals in their respective ecosystems. Given the large range of jaguars and their need for connected habitat, this study gives us hope to think that little hidden cameras might help us better understand where these charismatic cats and other rare animals roam, and consequently give us better information with which to help protect them.

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Photo Credit: purplegrum at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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