Canid Camera has been a "side project" of mine since the early years of my PhD. I say "side project" in quotes because, as those who are fond of these projects know, there really is no such thing. I spent years studiously setting and maintaining an array of about 50 cameras across the lower Hudson Valley to help examine shrubland quality in the region. By the end of my PhD, the end of the trail camera setting was nowhere in site, but I had amassed hundreds of thousands of photos and could no longer keep up with identifying the wildlife in them on my own. In 2017 I decided to put Canid Camera on the Zooniverse. I had seen a presentation by a Zooniverse co-creator at a conference and was enthralled. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to handle the massive amounts of data that were coming in and to engage the public in young forest conservation, a hot issue out here in New York. On the surface these shrublands look like a mess a relict of their creation through natural or anthropogenic destruction. But spend some time in them and they are beautiful. Their depths are rarely visited by humans and they are truly wild, full of youth and a vibrancy that is lacking among older forests. Their diversity of plants, insects, birds, and mammals is unmatched. In short, I have grown to love them and wanted to share them and their diversity with the world, and in posting to Zooniverse I would having help identifying the wildlife- it was a no-brainer, and I couldn't wait to get started. I found an excellent team of undergraduates to help put together the site... and we launched April 20, 2018. Canid Camera took on a life of it's own. We had over 125,000 photos identified the first week, and over 3,000 comments. Fast forward nearly a year and all of our photos were identified. We were on to Season 2 and (spoiler) we are featured in the New York Times! Working on Canid Camera has been a wonderful experience, (A+ side project) and I am so grateful to have worked with so many fantastic undergraduate students and folks participating in the project as we work toward creating thriving forests for wildlife.
2 Comments
Saeedah Naseer
6/7/2023 04:35:40 am
Great work on your blog post! It was informative and insightful, and I liked how you supported your points with evidence. To delve deeper into this topic, <a href="https://aecheeseman.weebly.com/news/canid-camera-in-the-nyt" target="_blank">click here</a>.
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AuthorAmanda is an Assistant Professor at South Dakota Sate University. Her research focuses on conservation and management of wildlife and their habitats Archives
October 2023
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