Wildlife, get ready for your close-up. Biologists are proposing a vast network of interconnected remote cameras that could revolutionize the study of bears, moose, caribou, cougars and other large animals across North America.
“If everybody collected similar information and sent it to a central repository, it would enable us to not only monitor changes in global biodiversity, but also understand why,” said Jesse Whittington, a Banff-based Parks Canada biologist and one of three co-authors of a paper promoting the idea.
Mr. Whittington said use of remote, motion-triggered cameras to study wildlife has grown as scientists warm to the non-invasive, relatively inexpensive and highly informative technique.
He and his colleagues estimate the use of wildlife cameras is nearly doubling every three years. Their paper estimates tens of thousands are already in use in nearly every region of the world.
Imagine if the data and images they collect were standardized and collated so that results from one study could be compared or combined with those of another, Mr. Whittington thought. The result could resemble the global network of weather reporting stations currently used for everything from weather prediction to climate modeling.