How to set up the perfect remote camera site to document wildlife

How to set up the perfect remote camera site to document wildlife

Conservation Northwest / Jul 16, 2020 / Restoring Wildlife, Wildlife Monitoring

New video offers tips on how to set up a remote camera site for the Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project

Our Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project‘s summer remote camera season is underway, but the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that in-person trainings and group trips are a challenge. So with the help of Sophie Mazowita, one of our volunteer team leaders, we put together this short video on how to set up the perfect remote camera site to document wildlife!

This video covers what to pack, how to pick your “trail cam” site, on-the-ground scouting, camera placement, frame elements, recording field data, navigation to your site, and viewing captured images. This video is a supplement to the written protocols and species-specific instructions available at conservationnw.org/wildlife-monitoring.

With partners including Wilderness Awareness School and an advisory board of state, federal and independent scientsts, Conservation Northwest leads the Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project, organizing community-scientist volunteers to monitor and document wildlife using remote cameras where state and federal agencies don’t have the resources to go. We harness the power of more than 100 volunteers each year to maintain dozens of remote camera sites in Washington and southern British Columbia, as well as to conduct winter snow tracking in the Interstate 90 corridor near Snoqualmie Pass to inform wildlife crossing projects.

Video produced by Sophie Mazowita, Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project Team Lead, with direction from Laurel Baum, Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project coordinator. Thank you!

Learn more about our CITIZEN WILDLIFE MONITORING PROJECT, or check out our FLICKR PAGE for wildlife monitoring PHOTOS.
Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project Coordinator Laurel Baum installs a remote camera site. Photo: Kelly Smith/UBB