Camera Traps

One of my responsibilities here is to check the Camera Traps that have been placed throughout the trail system.  The cameras are specially made to trigger when they sense movement and will take a picture every 30 seconds as long as something is moving in front of them.  Mostly we just get pictures of people walking past or leaves being stirred by the wind but we also get photos of what we are looking for – large mammals and birds.  We have pictures of jaguars, ocelots, tapirs, peccaries, and many more. 

Jaguar

There are two circuits of traps through our trail system and we check them once every two weeks.  The rotation is staggered so that we go out every Monday.  They are pretty simple to maintain, we just replace the memory cards, check to make sure the batteries aren’t low, and make sure no water has gotten inside.  It is sort of like opening presents every time you go out to collect the memory cards since you have no idea what kind of pictures the camera has taken until you load them up on a computer.

Tapir

Once we’ve loaded up all the pictures we sort through them to identify any animals and plug them into a database.  Footprints or sightings of animals also get put in the database so that we can add the info to our distribution maps and catalogue everything that’s living in the area.  Since the camera traps are in a fixed location, we can accurately record where the sightings occur.  The traps also put a time-stamp on the photos which lets us see when different species of animals are active.

Tigrillo

All of this information will hopefully lead to more grants, researchers and tourists coming to Villa Carmen and ACA’s other projects. 

Peccary

Curacao

Paca