IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Bahaa-el-din, L.; Cusack, J.J. | |
| Camera trapping in Africa: Paving the way for ease of use and consistency | |
| 2018 African Journal of Ecology (56): 690-693 | |
While the studies presented in this issue demonstrate what a useful and versatile tool the camera trap is, we also see that it is perhaps one of the most wastefully used tools. Camera traps are set up with considerable financial and human resources, often with single and/or simple overall objectives. Meanwhile, vast datasets are accumulated on non target species that then sit unused on hard drives. These "by-catch" data can provide insights into some of the most understudied and threatened species. Edwards et al. (2018b) demonstrated the use of such by-catch data, drawing useful analyses from leopard images obtained from camera traps originally set up to monitor Hartmann's mountain zebra (_Equus zebra hartmannae_, Matschie). It is usually not lack of will that leads to large portions of camera trap data being overlooked, but simply the lack of time or knowledge to process these large datasets. We hope that within this Special Section, we have provided the tools necessary to manage, analyse and present new information from existing data, paving the way for increased understanding of species of conservation concern. It is important to note that certain species do not lend themselves to being photographed by camera traps. Sliwa et al. (2018) explained why black-footed cats (_Felis nigripes_, Burchell), for example, are rarely picked up as by-catch data, and are impossible to survey systematically with camera traps. Absence in a camera trap study targeted at a community should therefore not be assumed to mean absence from an area. Indeed, Sliwa et al. (2018) demonstrated that camera traps have very useful alternative purposes for such hard-to-capture species, such as studying interspecific relationships, behaviour and reproduction; that is, once you have found the right place for the camera. The _African Journal of Ecology _is the leading journal for camera trap study publication in Africa (Agha et al., 2018) and will continue to publish such studies, including simple notes/records, short communications and original research articles. |
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