News from the Invasive Animals CRC that motion sensor cameras used to monitor the movement of feral animals might not be as discrete as previously thought comes as no news to Tambo wild dog hunting specialist Matt Wilson.
Not only does he acknowledge that animals are aware of the cameras in the environment, but he believes their response is largely based on the amount of human interaction that takes place with the cameras.
The IA CRC recently published research suggesting that camera traps may not be as hidden in the environment as once thought, with feral cats often seen walking up and stopping to look at a camera, while some wild dogs and foxes were found to reverse their direction of travel when noticing them.
Invasive Animals CRC researcher and Invasive Species officer, Paul Meek said the new results suggest “we might not be getting the full picture about pest animal behaviour that we thought we were”.
“Camera traps are revered globally; they can improve our knowledge about pest animal behaviour, assist in guiding management programs and open up doors to data and information, but with any new form of technology there are always issues surrounding their use."
Mr Meek spent four years identifying potential issues and now believes that animal “shyness” may be confounding population measurements, leading to adverse ecological decision-making.
In response, Matt, who has been eliminating feral animals at Lansdowne at Tambo for a number of years, says it’s the human interaction with the camera that baulks them.
“When you check it all the time, they know,” he said. “A smart dog – he’s gone.”
Matt said cameras had been of great value in amassing knowledge of how many dogs remained inside the cluster, their colour and where they were moving.
“When I trapped one, I could tick it off and know which ones were left.”
They cut down on his travel time and fuel costs, but he says he’s racking up the dollars replacing batteries.
Each of his 10 cameras takes an 18-battery pack costing $20, so he spends around $400 every six months on keeping the cameras active.
He’d love to see a rechargeable block brought in, rather than a solar panel.
“You may as well have a big sign saying “Coles – prices are down,” he said. “I want to be part of the environment, to interact with it.”
The research team emphasises it’s not suggesting to avoid using camera traps but to acknowledge the issues with their use, particularly in relation to estimates of abundance.
“We are concerned that potential error in abundance estimators caused by the detection of and responses to camera traps by animals has been largely overlooked in the literature and we want to delve further into this,” Mr Meek said.
The research team now plans to assess the impact of camera traps over a longer period of time and wants to understand if animals could become conditioned to the camera or if they will always respond in the same way.
The study on animal responses to camera traps is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.2111/full.
More information on camera trapping can be found via PestSmart Connect.
