Hello everyone,

I’ve been running a set of trail cameras for several months and now have thousands of images showing consistent activity from what appear to be 1–2 groups of deer, a local black bear family with 2-3 cubs, and at least one family of bobcats with 2 kittens.

My goal is to go beyond just species identification and start tracking individual animals over time, essentially, building a catalog so I can better understand their movements, interactions, and activity patterns.

Here’s what I’d like to do:

• Sort images by species automatically (deer, bear, bobcat).
• Recognize individuals, particularly bobcats (spot patterns are unique), possibly bears (chest/face markings), and deer (antler shape, scars, seasonal coats).
• Monitor activity by cataloging sightings across dates/times/locations.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has experience with:

• Practical workflows for moving from raw trail cam images → species ID → individual ID.
• Software that is easiest to set up for someone without a full ML engineering background.
• Tips for labeling images and building a reliable monitoring catalog.
• Any open-source projects or collaborations that might welcome additional datasets like mine.

My ideal outcome would be a repeatable pipeline where I can upload new batches of images and get updated insights into which individual animals are returning and how often.

Thanks in advance for any advice, tools, or guidance you can share!