If somebody is using or used trail cameras in small mammal research/monitoring can he/she share some experience with me. I would like to know how you position traps on-field and how they react on small mammal movement. If you have any advice what not to do also please share.
Dear Admir,
Please have a look at this useful PDF attachment.
Good luck!
I would like more information as to which small mammals you are hoping to capture on camera. We have field experience with monitoring one of our field sites and may be able to assist.
Tnx to all. for help. Mr James Bray. Mostly it would be coniferous and deciduous forest small mammals like Myodes glareolus (Schreber, 1780) or Apodemus sylvaticus (Linnaeus, 1758).
The Virginia Master Naturalist's Peninsula Chapter has mapped Newport News Park in Newport News Va. for two years all photos have been shared with the Smithsonian.
We used this method and were able to estimate occupancy probabilities and effects of covariates for rodent species.
Thank Jose. This is good topic and appriciate everything you can share with me.
There are also specific inventarisation setups for Mustela nivalis and Mustela erminea which are frequently visited by all kinds of rodent species.
This method was invented in the Netherlands (so described in Dutch), and by my knowing not described in English. However google translate already helps a lot.
See page 14-16:
https://www.natuurpunt.be/sites/default/files/documents/publication/handleiding_cameravallen_v20151028.pdf
If you need some translation help, just contact me.
Hi Admir,
We used camera traps to survey rodents (30g Peromsycus up to 300g Neotoma) with lots of success. We even detected shrews with the set ups. You must consider though that we used higher end cameras (Reconyx - $500), which I know have been used in other small mammal surveys. In some recent small mammal surveys with cheaper cameras (Cabela's hunting camera) I have found ti most useful to take video for small mammals because still frame photos can be very blurry and difficult to distinguish species especially if you are in species-rich area. Paper link below with photos in it. Best of luck!
Cheers,
Mike
Article Evaluating nest supplementation as a recovery strategy for t...
Thank you Michael. Im planning to use Spypoint Force - 11D with trigger speed of 0,07s. I hope it will be enough.
The Spypoints have very fast triggers, but their picture quality in infrared will make it very difficult to identify species of small mammals. You should test one of them before committing to buying large numbers.
Admir,
We used Moultrie M-880 with a photo burst of 3 pictures at a time for Allegheny Woodrat (Neotoma magister), and small carnivores (Long-tailed weasels) in mountainous areas of Virginia. These setting allowed us to capture quick moving animals (weasels), smaller rodents such as voles, Peromyscus sp, as well as larger Neotoma sp.
I also recommend you check out the publication " A novel method for camera‐trapping small mammals" by McCleery et al. (2014).
Cheers,
Jason
Thanks to all. These all are very useful information for my research.
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Ecology