of all ages become more aware of the natural world aroundthem and will help scientists learn about deer reproductionand the movement of mammal species across the state in avariety of habitats.

“Before we can answer all these questions about mammals,we need to collect massive amounts of data, in this case cam eratrap images, from across all 100 counties in North Carolina,”says project coordinator Arielle Parsons, a re searcher with theMuseum of Natural Sciences. “We really need the public’s helpto accomplish this. The more people that participate, the morewe can learn about North Carolina’s critters.”

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Camera traps revealed to Johnson a forest alivewith animals that are very good at hide and seek,but apparently are not camera shy. This powerfulperspective on nature not only captures arrestinganimal pictures, but is a useful tool for studyinganimal populations. The thrill of checking a cam -era trap to see what new pictures it has taken hasbeen popular for over a century. However, newtech nology has helped turn what was once a highlytechnical and expensive exercise into a broadlypopular hobby that gets people outdoors inter act -ing with wildlife while collecting valuable data forwildlife management.

In their 125-year history, camera traps haveconstantly improved by incorporating the latesttechnology of the day. However, the jump to digitalcameras in the last decade created a new prob lem—too many pictures. New technology to managethese digital images offers the next big advance in the field,but scientists need your help to make it happen. And youcan do just that by participating in North Carolina’s CandidCritters program, a three-year statewide citizen science cam -era trapping survey that seeks the help of residents to figureout what animals are living where. The project, initiated by the Wildlife Resources Commission and in partnershipwith N.C. State University and the N.C. Museum of NaturalSciences, gives residents the opportunity to set up a cam eratrap on public land or their own property, and monitor andshare the results. These discoveries will help North Carolinians

Atypical walk in the woods doesn’t turn up much wildlife. Most animalshear people coming and run away or hide before anyone can see them,and some species don’t even come out until after dark. This was the topicof discussion as Fred Johnson and his friend hiked through South Mountains Game

Lands to pick up a camera trap (also known as a game camera) he set three weeks

earlier as part of a citizen science wildlife project. This was Johnson’s first time running a camera trap,

and given that they hadn’t seen even a squirrel on their hike, he was starting to worry he was wasting his time.

To his surprise, the memory card was loaded with animal pictures, including one of a smiling coyote.

A coyote appears to strike a smiling pose while looking at the trailcamera in this photograph taken at South Mountains Game Land.

eMAMMAL

A new statewide camera trap survey offers beautifulpictures for citizens, data for scientists

Written by Roland Kays

The Evolution of Camera Traps

White-tailed deer leap into motion whenspooked by the flash apparatus in thisfirst-ever nighttime trail camera phototaken in Michigan.

GEORGE SHIRAS

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MATT ZEHER

time they were able to use camera traps todocument the animals that used dozens orhundreds of sites across large study areas.This was a bonanza for studying charismaticbut hard-to-see species. Suddenly tigers couldbe counted across nature preserves in India,lynx and fisher could be surveyed in remotemountain habitats, and even elusive wolver -ines could be studied just by leaving a bunchof cameras out in potential habitat.

Hunters began to discover camera trapsaround this time as well. Less interested inanalyzing data about the occurrences of rarespecies, this group of camera trappers wantedto know where the game was, especiallytrophy bucks. Hunters often run multiplecameras on their land to try and predict themovement patterns of their quarry, and decidewhere to focus their effort during the hunt -ing season. Hunters soon outnumbered sci -entists as users of camera traps, and havecre ated a big market for the devices that hasdriven companies to continue to improvetheir technology.

The switch from film to digital cameraswas the next advance in the history of cameratraps. Not only could this remove the limitson the number of pictures that could fit on aroll of film, but it also allowed engineers toincorporate an infrared flash that didn’t dis -turb the animals at night as much as a brightwhite flash. Given these clear advantages,most camera trappers were still slow to con -vert to digital. The biggest problem was thatearly digital cameras were slow, so that an ani -mal would move out of the frame betweentriggering the motion sensor and firing thecamera. Furthermore, early camera elec -tron ics were fragile and very vulnerable todamage from moisture. My own experimen -tation with early digital camera traps were a

frustrating combination of broken electronics,and pic tures showing only the tail of ananimal as it left the field of view of a slow-triggering camera.

Somewhere between 2008 and 2010, digi -tal technology finally caught up to the needsof the camera trapper, and the results wereworth the wait. Camera traps can now reli -ably trigger on most any mammal larger thana chipmunk that passes by. Battery and mem -ory capacity improve annually, allowing asingle camera trap to record many thou sandsof photographs, or even video. They are veryeasy to use, becoming more and more popularwith hunters and other nature enthusiasts.

Crowd Sourcing The modern digital camera set the stage forcitizen science wildlife research enlisting vol -unteers to run camera traps and share theirpictures with scientists. The devices wereeasy to use, the quality of the data could beverified by examining the pictures and theappeal of checking a camera trap to see whatpictures you get next never gets old. Thisapproach seemed to have the potential torevolutionize the study of wildlife by sur vey -ing larger areas with more camera traps thanany single team of biologists could accom -plish. One problem remained: How to man -age so many photographs?

To scientists, the joy of flipping throughthousands of cool animal pictures can getkilled by the pain of entering data for eachone. Addressing scientific questions and test -ing hypotheses requires statistical analysisof numbers, meaning researchers need to turnthe pictures of bears, coyotes and deer intonumbers describing which species is foundwhere and when. A typical camera trap leftout for a month might take 2,000 pictures;

Modern trail cameras offer high-res olu -tion pictures without lighting thatspooks animals. Some will even transmitphotos or videos to your home computeror smartphone. The Candid Crittersprogram creates an opportunity to makecamera trapping an activity the wholefamily can share.

The modern digital camera set the stagefor citizen science wildlife research

enlisting volunteers to run camera trapsand share their pictures with scientists.

MATT ZEHER

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A History of InnovationCamera traps were invented in the 1890swhen U.S. Representative and amateur photo -grapher George Shiras rigged a trip wire tohis camera and left it in the woods, capturingthe first close-up pictures of wild animalslike raccoons, deer and beavers. Technologyimproved slowly in those days. FrankChapman pioneered the use of camera trapsfor scientific purposes in the 1920s and com -plained that the magnesium cakes he usedas a flash were so loud that they sounded likea small cannon, frightening wildlife for milesaround. These camera rigs produced uniqueclose-up pictures of surprised animals, butthey required a lot of work for each pictureand remained a scientific novelty.

Things picked up in the 1980s and ’90swhen the combination of auto-windingcam eras, electronic flashes, passive infraredmotion sensors that detect moving heat,and 35mm film rolls allowed camera traps tobe left out in the woods for a few weeks at atime to capture two to three dozen pictures.Even more importantly, these units becameless expensive, and wildlife biologists startedrunning dozens of them at a time. Stoppingat the photo shop to pick up the latest batchof pictures and see what animals they got onfilm this time was the highlight of the day.Every wildlife photograph was useful to thescientists because it offered verifiable evi -dence of what species used a particular placeat a specific time. As scientists accumulatedmore and more pictures, they inevitably gotsome beautiful pictures, unique in their can -did view of otherwise shy species.

Even more important than the cool pic -tures for scientists was the increased samplesize this technology allowed; for the first

Camera traps have come a long way sinceGeorge Shiras filed a patent applicationfor a “Flash Light apparatus” in 1895 thatopened the door to photographing animalsat night. Below: Shiras (front) and hisassistant John Hammer photographanimals from a canoe in 1893. The glowfrom the flash in Shiras’ hand wouldattract an animal’s attention long enoughto snap its picture.

GEORGE SHIRAS

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multiply this by the dozens or hundreds ofsites most research projects monitor and youcan appreciate the problem faced by eagercamera trapping scientists. Crowd sourcingthe camera work has the potential to collecteven more data, which is great for the science,but requires an efficient solution for man ag -ing the pictures.

The creation of photo management sys -tems for handling massive amounts of datahas been the most important innovation inthe camera-trap ping field in recent years. Myown work with N.C. State and the Museum ofNatural Sciences has focused on building theeMammal system, in collaboration with theSmithsonian Institu tion, which is designed tobe used by citizen science projects with hun -dreds or thousands of volunteers contribut -ing pic tures. Experts oversee the projects tomake sure the cameras are set up correctlyand the species are identi fied accurately.

As a first test of this citizen scienceapproach, we worked with over 400 citizenscientists to run camera traps in 2,000 sitesacross 32 protected areas. We collected over2.6 million pictures, all care fully labeledand archived in the Smithsonian digitalrepository. Without the help of citizen

scientists, we would not have been able tovisit all of these sites to set cameras, and with -out the eMammal system we would havequickly drowned in the tidal wave of digitalpictures. Instead, we were able to analyze theresults to evaluate the effect of hiking andhunt ing on wildlife across these parks, find -ing out that habitat quality was more impor -tant to most species. Hunted areas did havesomewhat fewer deer, raccoons and squirrels,but more coyote activity. The volume of hikershad no effect on most wildlife. Feral cats wereextremely rare across these protected areas,probably because of coyotes. Dogs were com -mon, but almost all were walking on trailsand accompanied by owners. The project wasalso a success from the volunteer ’s stand point.Citizen scientists reported very favorably onthe experience, and often signed up for addi -tional opportunities.

Emboldened by the success of our citizenscience camera-trapping project in selectedparks, the Commission approached us withan interesting initiative. Could we survey anentire state?

Camera Trapping a StateOur new project, called North Carolina’s

Candid Critters, will work with citizen sci -entists to run camera traps across all 100counties in North Carolina. Our goal is towork with thousands of volunteers to runcameras in 20,000 –30,000 locations, makingthis the largest camera trap project ever. Thisisn’t just to get cool animal pictures, thereare a lot of important questions we can askabout our state’s wildlife with data col lectedat this scale.

Camera trap records provide a gold mineof data on any warm-blooded animal the sizeof a chipmunk or larger. The motion sensorstypically won’t trigger on cold-blooded ani -mals like snakes or lizards, but are fabulousat detecting mammals and larger birds liketurkeys. Our first step in analyzing this datais simply to plot the sites on a map to docu -ment which cameras detected a given species,and which did not (technically referred toas “occu pancy”). This can also be done in a way that shows the number of picturesrecorded for a given species, helping to dif -fer entiate highly preferred habitat (for exam -ple, visited every day by a species) frommarginal habitat (perhaps visited once permonth). By working with citizen scientists,we will be able to plot the distribution of ani -

FPO 9BDIGITAL

no proofneeded

A custom-built camera trap captures agray fox prowling a suburban backyardon a moonlit night near the coast. TODD PUSSER

wildlife research questionsCamera traps collect data on all medium and large birds and mammals that walk past them. Bycollecting data in all 100 counties across the state, North Carolina’s Candid Critters programwill document the wildlife of North Carolina with more detail than before. Below are some ofthe specific questions we are most excited about.

White-tailed Deer: How do deer populations varyacross the state? We will be focusing on fawns in ourearly fall survey as an indicator of population growthof the herd.

Coyotes: Are coyotes increasing? Where do they live?Coyotes spread across the state in the 1990s but noone knows if their numbers are still growing or howtheir presence affect prey such as deer, or com peti torslike foxes and bobcats.

Elk: North Carolina’s small elk herd in the mountains ismoving and spreading, but where? What habi tats dothe elk use?

Feral Swine: Where do feral swine range? This inva -sive animal threatens ecosystems with their aggressiverooting, and domestic pigs with their diseases. Map pingwhere they persist will help control efforts.

Eastern Chipmunks: What determines chipmunkdistribution? This familiar rodent is common in thewest of the state but rare or absent in the east—counting these little critters on cameras will help usunderstand why.

Eastern Fox Squirrels: How do fox squirrels vary incolor across the state? Larger than the more commongray squirrel, this species has dramatically differentcolor morphs living in separate populations across thestate. Camera trap pictures from our project will helpshow where these colorful squirrels live and help usunderstand what types of forests they prefer.

American Black Bears: North Carolina has black bear populations along the Coast and in the Moun -tains, with a big gap in their distribution across thePiedmont Region. Camera traps will allow us to directlycompare the size and reproduction of these populations.

IMAGES ABOVE BY eMAMMAL

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for this step. We will also be working withschools across the state to involve kids in thiswildlife science project.

As the pictures start rolling in from acrossthe state, we’ll be going through them todouble-check the identifications, map theresults and generate summary statistics.These results and favorite pictures will beshared online, so you can compare yourresults with others from across the state tosee who captures the most elusive, funny or beautiful animal photo.

I can’t guarantee you’ll get a coyote pic -ture as charismatic as the one Fred Johnsoncaptured, but I am certain that the data youcollect will be useful. Whether you dis covera secret wildlife hotspot or get only a few ani -mal pictures, you’ll help us document whichanimals live where, and why. Johnson’s datahelped us evaluate the impact of hunting andhiking on wildlife, finding that most speciesdidn’t avoid hiking trails, and that the pres -ence of hunting was relatively unimportantcompared to habitat factors.

“Candid Critters is a unique project thatwill enable the Commission to join with thepeople of North Carolina to engage in scienceand explore our beautiful state,” said GordonMyers, the Commission’s executive director.“From our backyards to North Carolina’swildest places, the images collected by school -children and adult volunteers will increaseeveryone’s understanding and enjoyment of the natural world, while at the same time informing future wildlife manage -ment decisions.”

Roland Kays is the head of the biodiversityresearch lab at the N.C. Museum of NaturalSciences and director of the Candid Critters program.

Photographer Neil Jernigan has takentrail cams several steps further by creat -ing one out of a digital camera. He getshigh-resolution photos and employsmultiple flash units for better lightingthat helps create more artistic imagesthan a normal trail cam would produce.Jernigan was attempting to capture abobcat photo here, but instead got ashot of a great blue heron that hadwalked down the stream hunting forfish. Look closely, and a deer can bespotted in the background.

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mals not only within each county, but alsoacross the entire state, mapping out wildlifeat a scale and resolution never seen before.

After describing the pattern of wildlifeoccur rence, the next step is to explain why

animals live wherethey do: Do theyhave cer tain habitatpreferences? Arethey limited by cold winters or hotsummers? Theseques tions can beaddressed by com -bining the cam eratrap data with envi -ronmental fac tors instatistical models

that help put numbers behind what we seeon the map, allowing rigorous testing ofhypotheses about what is important to eachspecies. Interactions between species can alsobe tested, especially predator (like coyotes)and prey (like deer and foxes) relationships.

How Can You Help?We need your help collecting data by run ningcamera traps, looking through pic tures toiden tify animals, and sharing them all withus so we can add your locations to our state -wide comparisons. You can use your owncam era traps or borrow one of ours after yousign up and take our training course atNCCandidCritters.org. You can run yourcamera trap on your own property or “adopt”one of the sites on public land that we haveselected across the state, using this oppor -tunity to take a hike in your nearby statepark, game land or national forest.

Going out into the woods to set a cameratrap is a good excuse to get some exercise,but the return trip to pick up the memorycard three weeks later is when the fun reallystarts—this is when you get to see what crit -ters you’ve captured. We have customizedsoftware you can use to flip through the pic -tures and tag the animals you see. We arepart nering with local libraries so you can usetheir computer and Internet connection

Whether you discover asecret wildlife hotspot or

get only a few animalpictures, you’ll help us

document which animalslive where, and why.

NEIL JERNIGAN