MammalWeb: A citizen science camera trap project to monitor mammals
MammalWeb was set up as a joint initiative between Durham Wildlife Trust and Durham University. It has since expanded beyond the northeast of England, and now includes data from across Britain and from several other European countries. Here, Sian Green of the MammalWeb team describes what MammalWeb is about and why we need the help of as many participants as possible.
Citizen science, a term used for projects when members of the public are involved in scientific research, has a long history within wildlife recording. Citizen science approaches have been particularly successful for long-term and large-scale bird monitoring, with organisations such as the BTO and RSPB engaging many thousands of people in garden bird and breeding bird surveys. These types of projects work well, as the daytime activity of many bird species makes them easier to spot. Mammals, on the other hand, can often be much more elusive: locally rare, coming out at night, and often deliberately avoiding human presence.
Due to these issues, the use of camera traps for mammal monitoring has grown massively in popularity in recent years. Camera traps are remotely activated cameras that can be left outside to record animal activity. They are triggered when an animal moves in front of them, causing them to take a photo, a series of photos, or a short video. Along with the photos or video, the date and time of trigger is recorded. This provides us with a record of the species at that location and at that time. This information is useful and can tell us all sorts of information, such as which species live in that area, how they interact, and how that shapes their activity patterns.
Camera traps can be a very efficient way of gathering lots of information on a range of mammal species, as they can be left in place for days, or even weeks, at a time and they are relatively straightforward to set up. However, in order to monitor mammals at a large scale - across a country or continent - data is needed from a large number of locations, covering a range of habitats. This makes it very difficult for an individual or small organisation to undertake such monitoring, as they would have to spend much of their time travelling around to set up cameras in different locations. As a solution to this problem, the MammalWeb project is engaging members of the public from all over the UK and inviting them to upload camera trap footage that they have collected. In this way, the efforts of thousands of camera trappers across Britain, often driven purely by their own interest, can be brought together to provide a great resource on our wild mammals.
Once camera trap footage has been collected it also needs to classified, and all species present in the footage identified. This can be a very time-consuming process, as a single camera trap may collect thousands of photos in just a few weeks. MammalWeb also invites participants to view and classify camera trap footage. This can be footage that they themselves have uploaded, or that has been uploaded by other individuals or organisations in need of assistance with classification of camera trap footage, so you don’t need to have your own camera trap to be able to participate in the project.
As an individual or organisation, participation in MammalWeb can be a great way to get your efforts to benefit and enlist others. You also benefit from a range of downloadable reports summarising your data, the classifications you have submitted and the classifications others have submitted regarding what's in the images or videos.
Although MammalWeb has been running for over 6 years, we have deliberately extended our coverage relatively slowly, taking time to ensure that our systems were scalable. We are now confident in our systems and ready to expand to greater coverage – especially across the UK. During the "30 days wild" campaign, we are appealing for the participation of anyone with the capacity to help – either by deploying camera traps, or by helping to classify the resultant images. As part of our campaign to increase our coverage across the UK, we have recently joined many regional mammal groups across the UK. We hope this will help to drive wider participation, increasing the value of the growing database!
If you are interested in taking part, please go to www.mammalweb.org. If you have any questions that aren't answered on the site, you can email us at info@mammalweb.org.