Week 2: Setting up Trail Cameras

Tiffany E -

Hello everyone!

Rock Squirrel standing on a rock
Rock Squirrel spotted on trail camera

This week I’ve continued to sort through the trail camera videos using the Sanderson Method. I’ve completed about 2 of the files that were given to me on my hard drive! One thing I’ve been noticing is that a large majority of the videos have been blank. As I mentioned previously, heat and motion trigger the trail camera. Often, when the grass heats up from the sun, and it’s windy outside, this will cause the trail camera to record. This is also why I haven’t seen any rain, even though it likely has rained due to it being monsoon season in many of the videos. Since many of these videos have been going into the “XX_Blank” category it makes it so much more exciting to see an animal in the video! My expert advisor gave me an Arizona-Mexico Animal Identification powerpoint to help me with identifying the animals in the videos. This week I’ve definitely had to use it quite a bit. I’ve had the most trouble with identifying hooded skunks vs. hog-nosed skunks, especially when only part of the skunk is actually visible in the video. If I’m super unsure, I can put it into the “XX_Unknown Mammal” file and review it with my expert advisor later. I’ve identified a lot of different animals so far this week (no ocelot yet) including: multiple types of skunk, Virginia Opossum (Divi), Black Bear (Uram), Mountain Lion (Puco), Javelina (Peta), Grey Fox (Urci), White-nosed Coati (Nana), and Rock Squirrel (Spva), which is in the image above! In case you forgot, the words in the parenthesis are the abbreviations of the scientific name of the animal. For example, the scientific name of the Black Bear is Ursus Americanus. So, the abbreviation is Uram.

This week my expert advisor has been out of the office as she is in the field working with the trail cameras. At the end of last week as she was preparing to go into the field, I had the opportunity to set up a trail camera. There were many different settings to adjust, including what media the camera will take. The trail cameras we have can take pictures, videos, or pictures and videos. We set them to just videos. If the camera takes just pictures you don’t get as much of the story or as much information. If you select both pictures and videos, usually the picture has the animal, but by the time the camera starts recording, the animal has already moved out of sight. We also had to set the wait time interval to 5 minutes. This interval is how long the camera waits until taking another video. If it is lower, then the camera will likely continue to record the same animal over and over. This setting can also be helpful with reducing the number of blank/wind videos we get, and it helps to ensure there’s enough storage for long periods of time.

That’s all for this week!

Tiffany

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    preeti_p
    Hello Tiffany! If an animal were to approach the cameras while it is raining, would the trail cameras still be able to record that? What king of insights into animal behavior do these videos give?
    February 20, 2025 at 1:57 pm - Reply
    tiffany_e
    Hi Preeti! Thank you for your questions. Yes, if an animal were to approach the cameras while it is raining, the trail camera would still start recording. This is because the trail camera would still detect the heat and movement that was coming from the animal, despite the rain. These videos give us a lot of different insights into animal behavior. From these videos we can gain information about predator-prey relationships, animal activity, and animal presence. The study that I am analyzing trail camera videos for is firstly attempting to identify what animals are actually present in the Atascosas Mountains, a very understudied area in Arizona, so these videos help us to know what animals are actually present in this region. From these videos we can begin to make correlations of animal presence in relation to weather and season. The trail camera videos are marked with date, time, and temperature, and were taken both before and during monsoon season and a hot summer. It is interesting to see if this affects animal behavior and animal presence, as some animals might need to come out searching for water and food. I hope this helps to answer your questions!
    February 20, 2025 at 4:23 pm - Reply
    Olivia F.
    Tiffany, this project is very enlightening, as before reading this, I would have assumed that there were no ocelots in Arizona, other than any captive in zoos. Is there a certain way to fact-check that when you see any ocelots that it isn’t the same one a few days later, so that the population estimate and correlation data isn’t skewed?
    February 21, 2025 at 3:38 pm - Reply
    Sahaas T.
    Hi Tiffany, do you plan on trying to lure ocelots to the trail camera (in a way which does not disturb the surrounding environment) so you can spot them? If not, are there any specific spots you could place the trail cameras which are in the preferred habitats of the ocelots assuming there are ocelots in Arizona?
    February 23, 2025 at 8:03 pm - Reply
    Aashneel Chowdhury
    Hello, Tiffany, are you planning to use any new technology to improve the effectiveness of your trail cameras or maybe expanding the range of your cameras by including unusual places for animals to appear. I would suggest maybe getting in touch with a local hunting group as they most likely have good information about the local wildlife that might differ from you have already acquired.
    February 24, 2025 at 6:35 am - Reply
    Elena S.
    Hi Tiffany, do you only put trail cameras in the most common areas for wildlife to be seen, or do you also put them in areas with less wildlife traffic? Also, do certain areas/cameras capture certain species more than in other areas, or is the distribution generally even?
    February 24, 2025 at 7:36 am - Reply
    Aj
    I have a question about the diets of the ocelot. What do ocelots eat, and how would what they eat explain the recent emergence of ocelots into Arizona? Have their prey populations also increased in Arizona?
    February 24, 2025 at 11:25 am - Reply
    tiffany_e
    Hi Olivia! Thank you for your question. If the image of the ocelot is clear enough, then usually you can use the pattern of the ocelot's fur to determine if it is the same ocelot or a different one. All ocelots have different coat patterns and different distinguishable marks, so that's how we can identify them. This hasn't been much of a problem yet, as there haven't been that many sightings, but this would be what we would do if there were! Additionally, we can use their fur pattern to see if the ocelot is brand new to Arizona, or if the ocelot has been previously seen here. "Lil Jefe" is a known ocelot to the Huachuca Mountains, so if we see an ocelot on the trail camera, we can use its pattern to determine if the ocelot has already been spotted/is known to spend time in Arizona. I hope this answers your question!
    February 24, 2025 at 11:27 am - Reply
    tiffany_e
    Hi Sahaas! To answer your question, I do not plan on trying to lure any ocelots to the trail cameras. I am going through videos from last summer, so this would unfortunately not be possible, and it would also potentially skew the data, as we would want to see the ocelots and their behavior in their natural environment without any outside factors impacting their presence. Although, I know that a previous study has used a scented hair-snare to detect ocelots, and the scent on the snare lures them. To answer your second question, yes there are spots that we can put the trail camera in that the ocelots are likely to be in. We put the trail cameras in areas where wildlife frequently traverse/are likely to traverse. These areas include rocky washes and grassier areas. Let me know if you have any more questions!
    February 24, 2025 at 11:35 am - Reply
    tiffany_e
    Hello Aashneel! Thanks for your question! I'm not necessarily planning to use any new technology to improve the trail cameras, as the ones that the Phoenix Zoo are currently using are already quite impressive and give us a lot of interesting data and information to go through. The study that I am working on with my expert advisor is actually an expanded range of a previous study. There are now 50 trail cameras located in a wide range of area in the Atascosas Mountains, which is a very understudied area, so any information we get is likely to be useful! Your suggestion is actually something I had not previously thought about but is quite interesting as back in the 1900's hunters actually discovered a few ocelots in Southern Arizona and would often report their sightings of them. Thanks for your input and feel free to reach out with any other questions!
    February 24, 2025 at 11:46 am - Reply
    tiffany_e
    Hi Elena! As I'm not the one actually placing the trail cameras, I'm not entirely sure on how they decide exactly where to put them, but I'll try my best to answer your question based on what I've seen through the videos I've been watching! I would definitely say that some areas do not get nearly as much wildlife traffic as others. For some locations, about 95% of the videos have been blank, while for others the majority have been various different animals, from black bears to deer. From the videos I've looked through, there hasn't been a relatively even distribution of animals at each location. For some trail cameras the majority of what I see are white-tailed deer, while at others its domestic cows and skunk. Even though I've seen a lot of animals in total, they've all been relatively spread out at different sites from different trail cameras. This is likely due to what each site has to offer for the animal in terms of environment and prey/food availability. I hope this answers your questions!
    February 24, 2025 at 11:53 am - Reply
    tiffany_e
    Hello Aj! Ocelots typically eat small rodents, but they're also known to eat snakes, lizards, and birds. I'm not entirely sure about the correlation between what they eat and their emergence in Arizona, as this might not be their biggest factor for the recent spottings here. I believe that one of the larger factors in their recent presence in Arizona is due to limited habitat availability, which is one of their biggest current threats due to human development and infrastructure. Although the fact that their prey is available here definitely adds another layer as to why we're seeing more in Arizona, and that combined with more habitat space for them in the Sky Islands is likely an influential factor into their presence. As you can see, there really isn't a clear and known reason as to why they're here, so if you have any more questions feel free to let me know!
    February 24, 2025 at 12:00 pm - Reply
    Michelle
    Hi Tiffany! Your topic is really cool! I was wondering if the cameras are put in specific places to hopefully have a better chance at spotting an ocelot or if they’re placed at random. If they’re placed strategically, why would they be placed there instead of elsewhere?
    February 24, 2025 at 10:29 pm - Reply

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