As human activities increasingly threaten natural habitats, the need to study and monitor trends in wildlife populations is increasingly urgent. Camera traps, also known as trail or game cameras, have revolutionized wildlife research and conservation over the last century. These remotely triggered devices capture images or video of free-living animals, providing researchers with photographic evidence of even elusive and rarely seen species. Camera traps are cost-effective, easy to use, minimally disruptive to wildlife, and often outperforming traditional survey methods like visual counts or observations of tracks and signs in terms of data-gathering potential. They enable researchers to tackle critical questions about wildlife presence, abundance, distribution, and behavior, providing important information about species’ ecology and response to local and global change.

While camera traps allow researchers to infer critical ecological and behavioral insights, not all taxa or habitats are equally suited to camera trapping. Different camera trap models and tailored protocols are required depending on the target species, study objectives, and environmental conditions. Selecting the right survey design is essential to collect the right data to robustly answer your conservation question.

There’s a lot to figure out before you set up a single camera in the field – but where to start? Learning to navigate the complexities of camera trapping can feel overwhelming. That’s where this course comes in! The Camera Trapping for Conservation course is designed to equip participants with the foundational knowledge and practical skills needed to effectively use camera traps. Through this course, you’ll learn:

• When and where camera trapping is an appropriate method.
• How to design surveys to meet specific research objectives.
• The technical aspects of camera trap selection and deployment.
• Best practices for managing and analyzing the vast amount of data generated.

Camera Trapping for Conservation is designed to provide you with the foundational knowledge and practical skills necessary to harness the full potential of camera traps. Alongside the lessons, you'll gain access to case studies, supplementary reading materials, and hands-on exercises to ensure you gain both theoretical understanding and practical experience. 

By the end of the course, you’ll have the understanding to design and implement camera trap studies tailored to your needs, whether in dense rainforests, sprawling savannahs, or urban landscapes. Join this course to build confidence and expertise in camera trapping for research and conservation! 

Why take this course? 

• Through this course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of establishing specific aims and objectives for your camera trap study, designing and executing a camera trap survey to meet these objectives, and how to perform basic analysis and interpretation of these camera trap data. 

Who is this course for? 

• These lessons are designed for students, early-career researchers, conservation practitioners, and anyone interested in using camera traps to monitor wildlife.

What do you need to know? 

• This is a course for beginners, no previous experience with camera trapping is required!
• A basic understanding of wildlife ecology, conservation biology, and basic data handling skills are helpful, but not mandatory.
• We will be using R Programming Language in several of our hands-on activities; prior familiarity with R is recommended, but you do not need to be an expert to follow along!