Methods
Summary
As remote wildlife cameras have improved and became more cost effective over the years, they have become a good method to provide physical evidence (through photographs) that document presence of wildlife species in particular areas. This is especially true for nocturnal wildlife and cryptic or reclusive species...a good example would be the photographic detection of wolverines in California.
This project specifically targets ringtails (Bassariscus astutus) and will be working with collaborators in a Citizen-Science effort to distribute, place, recover, download, and analyze data from wildlife cameras placed in locations potentially suitable for ringtails. Numerous areas of California contain habitats where it is not known if ringtails are present. Working in concert with the separate State Wildlife Grant (SWG) project being conducted by Kristyn Schulte, areas of California where information is lacking will be targeted in priority for distribution of the wildlife cameras associated with this project. That information would be shared with the SWG in their effort to develop a current distribution map of ringtails in California.
After the cameras have been deployed and returned, the photographic data will be downloaded into Wildlife Insights for filtering out of photographs that do not contain photos of animals (e.g. swaying branches, moving grass, rockfalls, etc). The new file folder containing only photographs of organisms would then be examined for any ringtail photographs and those photograph locations documented and the photographs electronically stored. It is anticipated that students from the Field Ecology program at Sacramento City College would be involved with the photo sorting in an effort similar to the WildCam Gorongosa project except for our study only targeting ringtails.
The location data for presence of ringtails will be shared with the biologist for the SWG during the expected three-year timeframe of the SWG project. Concurrently and thereafter, project data will be maintained through the Report Ringtails website for documenting ringtail occurrences in California as well as the California Ringtail Project site in iNaturalist.
Challenges
As with any project involving equipment being placed in generally unsecured locations, theft or damage become potential risk factors that are hard to overcome. Collaborators have the option of providing their own security measures - such as bike locks, cable locks, etc., but the California Ringtail Project currently is not anticipating including such locks into our distribution efforts (mainly as a cost item where the preference is to put any additional money into buying cameras that can help increase deployments).
The other risk is becoming too successful. By this, I mean that so many people wish to participate that we have too few cameras to get them distributed in a timely manner (especially with deployments lasting up to two months for each camera). I know that can become frustrating for people that wish to participate but equipment availability definitely is a limitation. That combined with the prioritization efforts associated with locations in California where ringtail presence is unknown also could result in limitations of camera availability. And, that "too successful" comment also holds true for the number of photographs that are submitted into the project. While the filtering mechanisms associated with Wildlife Insights will be of tremendous help, it does remain time consuming to manually go through the actual photos with wildlife to find those with ringtails. Further collaboration with Wildlife Insights might provide some AI solutions...that will be investigated.
Pre Analysis Plan
Much of the basics of analysis of the submitted photographic data is provided in the above sections. The challenge of analysis will be somewhat a moving target due to the unpredictability of knowing the number of photographic files that we're likely to have submitted. The use of Wildlife Insights for a "pre-screening" will certainly help but if past experience is any measure, the number of photographs on a single camera can measure into the thousands during a one or two month deployment. Multiply that with the initial 15 cameras we've requested here (and hopefully more if we exceed our initial goal) and other cameras that are being volunteered into the effort, a very large number of files are expected.
But, on the good side of this equation is that we anticipate many students and other volunteers would be interested in providing the analysis "filtering" out ringtail occurrences just by the eyeballs they can provide (it is like a gift giving occasion where you anticipate something but you never know what you are going to get...I find it thrilling at times!). That, coupled with looking further into Wildlife Insights' services, could provide the means to expeditiously go through the expected mounds of data.
Again, all of this data is shared with the SWG that will help to formulate a robust current distribution map for ringtails in California and even after completion of the SWG would continue to provide information through the Report Ringtails website and the California Ringtail Project iNaturalist website.
Protocols
Browse the protocols that are part of the experimental methods.
