Our wildlife experts join us to talk about trail cameras, white-nose syndrome in bats, the rare bird that was sited near Lake Michigan and other wildlife topics.
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New Wisconsin Project Pulls Data, Images To Track Changes In Wildlife
Wisconsin wildlife will soon be stars of their own reality show. A volunteer-driven project called Snapshot Wisconsin will eventually use 4,000 to 5,000 trail cameras, satellites and crowd sourcing to create a database to monitor wildlife populations, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
Snapshot Wisconsin is a collaboration between researchers and workers in the state Department of Natural Resources, NASA, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the UW-Extension. The project began in mid-May and so far, 500 cameras have been located in Sawyer and Iowa counties. The goal is, within five years, to have cameras in every county in the state.
The effort uses volunteers to monitor trail cameras and to categorize the photos taken from the cameras. The trail cams will be provided and volunteers will receive training on how to set up and monitor the cameras.
Jamie Nack, wildlife outreach specialist with Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at UW-Madison, said the project needs the volunteers’ help.
“They are looking for landowners and educators to host a trail camera and download photos, every couple of months, into a huge collection of photos that then get categorized by the public,” said Nack.
The “public” could be any one in the world, sitting at their computers, going through the crowdsourcing website added Nack. The pictures will be available through the Zooniverse portal that was developed with the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. The volunteers will look at the photos and identify wildlife that they see.
“There are a lot of opportunities to get involved. If you don’t own properties and don’t have the ability to host a camera, you can certainly help catalogue the photos,” said Nack.
He said the project could also be educational.
“It’s a great thing to do with kids, if you’re a teacher or in education, it might be something your class adopts,” said Nack.
There is a blog attached with the project where volunteers can chat with researchers and ask questions.
To get involved with the project, go to the Snapshot Wisconsin online signup site.
Episode Credits
- Larry Meiller Host
- Jill Nadeau Producer
- Jamie Nack Guest
- David Drake Guest
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