It is so nice to see animals and pretty cool to hear animals, but the fact remains that there are many more animals on the property than we see or hear. So to understand the whole wildlife picture we, literally, take pictures.
Camera traps are just cameras that are triggered with a sensor when an animal walks by, taking either still photos or video of the animal. These images can then be looked at on a computer and most often the species of animal can be determined.
Placing cameras in locations likely to have animals moving through is key, and here are Leta Ames and Sara Freimuth placing a camera trap along the Firestone Center's border with the Hacienda Baru's property (old growth forest). Lots of very cool animals come onto the FCRE from this large old forest, so having a camera trap here could score something nice.
A second science project relates to a web-making spider here, and so two students are keen to find and start seriously looking at these spiders and their webs. While setting up the camera traps we were able to locate a couple webs. And oh dear, the first one was...
Well, the next one had to be easier, right...