Camera Traps at Ordway: What animals are here?
This summer I had the opportunity to spearhead a new element of the on-going oak forest exclosures project here at Ordway: putting out camera traps! Camera traps are just trail cameras (the only trapping part is catching an animal in a photo or video taken by the camera) that are set out in a designated area to catch photo or video footage of animals in action. Here at Ordway, we are interested in deer herbivory and its impacts on various plant communities, so we put out 11 cameras to specifically catch deer. How do these cameras work? With both IR and motion sensors, the cameras pick up changes in heat or movement caused by animals (and occasionally plants). When this happens, it triggers the camera to take photos, videos, or both, depending on the settings selected. Have you caught any cool photos? My favorite part of this project was looking through the photos to see who was wandering around during the study period! Besides catching ourselves doing work on the EREN and RVS proje