From Testing Cameras in Her Backyard to a Statewide Monitoring Program
The following piece was written by OAS Communications Coordinator Ryan Bower for the Snapshot Wisconsin newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, visit this link.
Jen Stenglein, Quantitative Research Scientist at the Wisconsin DNR and one of the longest-serving Snapshot staff members, walks us through the early years of the program and how Snapshot Wisconsin expanded into the massive project that it is today.
If you are a newer Snapshot volunteer, then here is your chance to learn more about the program’s early history. For those who lived much of the history firsthand (especially the early adopters), this article might be a trip down memory lane. Either way, we hope you get something from this recounting of the past and connect more strongly with the program.
A Grant and a Collaboration
Snapshot Wisconsin’s origin stems from a NASA grant that the University of Wisconsin-Madison received in 2013. The grant aimed to lay the groundwork for a citizen science program for monitoring wildlife that would be launched by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Soon after, the DNR created Snapshot Wisconsin and started what would become a massive project.
Stenglein got involved while the project was still in the planning phase. “I was finishing my PhD at the time in Madison, WI and heard about the project. Thanks to my connection with the university, I already knew many of the major players involved,” said Stenglein. “Some of the initial project planning happened before I came in, so the project was basically waiting for someone to figure out the logistics.”
What cameras should volunteers use? How should the cameras be set up to capture the best photos? How would they get equipment to volunteers and train them? There were many questions and fewer answers.
2014: Figuring out the Logistics
In 2014, Stenglein began to answer these questions by running tests in her backyard. “I had a whole line of cameras set up in my backyard, each a different model. We also had cameras out behind the DNR building [to test a second location]. There were so many questions we needed to answer,” recalled Stenglein.
At the time, the Snapshot team was comprised of only two people: Stenglein and Christine Anhalt-Depies, the current project coordinator for Snapshot Wisconsin. Stenglein was working on the program full-time, while Anhalt-Depies was devoting half her time to support Snapshot Wisconsin. Piece by piece, they ran tests and figured out what cameras and setup the first volunteers would use.
Stenglein recalled figuring out other logistics too like where the cameras would go. “I remember looking at a map of Wisconsin and making the decision to divide townships into quarters. That would be our grid setup,” said Stenglein. “Those grid blocks were about the right size [roughly nine square miles] for what we wanted and left space for over 6,000 cameras around the state. That sounded like a doable maximum.”
By the end of the year, Stenglein and Anhalt-Depies had finished enough of the equipment testing to put their plan to the test, starting with Wisconsin’s elk herd.
2015: The First True Test
Elk at the time were just being reintroduced in Wisconsin. There was one small, existing elk population (reintroduced from Michigan), but that population hadn’t taken off how people hoped. A second effort was being set up to bring Kentucky elk to Wisconsin, and those elk were coming in just as Snapshot became ready to test out their program.
“We thought it would be a really great opportunity to test Snapshot Wisconsin on a known population. All of the elk were radio-collared, [so we knew how many were being added to the area.] It was a perfect test to see how well our equipment and methods would hold up,” said Stenglein.
But of course, things didn’t go perfectly as planned. One near miss stood out to Stenglein and captured some of the hecticness of getting the program up and running.
“We almost didn’t have the cameras in time,” explained Stenglein. The camera delivery came in late on the same day that we were scheduled to set up the cameras. “We already had folks waiting in the field, and I had to plead with the delivery driver [to prioritize delivering our cameras].” There were some near misses like that, but Stenglein said they worked through them all in the end.
By the end of the year, a few hundred cameras had been deployed across the elk zones, and the program was officially running. Volunteers now ran the cameras, and images were starting to stream in.
2016: Expanding the Program
Once the team felt they were in a solid routine, they started thinking about expanding Snapshot to more of the state. “It was nice to have the elk grid up and running already, because we knew how the logistics would function,” said Stenglein.
The Snapshot team focused on recruiting educators, even seeking out a couple grants to build collaborations with different educator groups. “Educators seemed like a good place to start, because they affect so many people in their daily life,” said Stenglein. “They could help us reach more people faster.”
To start, the team mainly accepted volunteers from only two Wisconsin counties: Sawyer and Iowa Counties. “We heard from lots of people [around the state] who were excitedly awaiting enrollment, but we wanted to roll things out slowly [to work out any new kinks in the process]. For example, we didn’t want to have a bunch of people getting equipment, only to be frustrated by the IT system not working properly yet,” said Stenglein.
Stenglein and the team were enrolling volunteers at a steady pace, but volunteers had to attend an in-person training session before they received their equipment. Since the team was still only three to four people, there were a limited number of trainings offered. That bottleneck kept the expansion to a manageable pace.
The project was going well though. By the end of 2016, Snapshot had expanded to nine counties (adding Iron, Jackson, Manitowoc, Waupaca, Dodge, Racine and Vernon Counties). The IT infrastructure was working properly, supporting the in-flow of data. All of the planning that Stenglein and the team did was starting to pay off.
The team even launched their first first season of photos on Zooniverse, the crowd-sourcing platform. “Zooniverse was just an itty-bitty platform back then,” joked Stenglein, “but it helped us process photos much faster than we could have without it.”
2017: Growth and Rare Species Detections
Just as 2016 saw a growth to nine counties accepting volunteers, 2017 saw a similar growth. By the end of the year, one quarter of the state’s counties, or 18 in total, were accepting volunteers. St. Croix, Oneida, Marinette, Clark, Dane, Grant, Marathon, Rusk and Taylor counties were all added to the list in 2017. Additionally, over 1,000 volunteers had joined the program by this point, and the program was accepting volunteers even faster than before.
Coverage of the state was starting to fill in enough to be useful from a data perspective. For example, the Snapshot program saw its first rare species detection in 2017. It was a moose from Price County. “I remember it was really exciting because we were waiting for a rare species,” said Stenglein. The team quickly saw more rare species detections in rapid succession too, including a marten and whooping crane. “That whooping crane was extra exciting because we could ID the individual [from the colored bands on its legs] and learn more about it,” added Stenglein.
2018: Gearing up for a Statewide Launch
Up until early-2018, the Snapshot team was adding counties to spread out coverage across the state. However, by March 2018, there were 26 counties involved. “At that point, adding counties was getting arbitrary,” said Stenglein. “Most areas of the state had at least one county involved already.” It was time to start accepting volunteers from all 72 counties: a true statewide launch.
Many improvements to the team and infrastructure had smoothed out most of the kinks in the system. The team had grown in size, and that additional capacity helped speed up onboarding of new volunteers. A new version of the cameras was also being used, which took fewer blank photos, and training had moved online to cut down on staff travel times. Everything was giving a green light for launch.
On August 9th, Snapshot Wisconsin officially launched statewide. Stenglein said the statewide launch was when it felt like Snapshot truly hit its stride. “I really felt like that point in time was pivotal for the project.”
Immediately after the statewide launch, the size of the program exploded. The team was able to accept much of the backlog of volunteers that had previously been unable to join the program. In 2018 alone, over 1,200 volunteers and 1,174 new trail cameras were added to the project, almost doubling Snapshot’s size.
2019: More Staff and a Slew of Publications
To compensate for the doubling of the volunteer base, four new Snapshot positions were added to the team, and Anhalt-Depies took over as the project coordinator. The added support was very timely because the program continued to expand as more and more volunteers joined.
Additionally, enough data had come in by this point that the team (especially Stenglein) could start publishing their findings.
The program had already been generating data for the management of certain species, including generating fawn-to-doe ratios for deer and population estimates for each elk herd. However, until 2019, the project hadn’t published any peer-reviewed publications.
In a flurry, five scholarly publications were released in 2019 by the Snapshot Wisconsin team or one of the graduate students working with the program. Five publications in a single year is substantial, but it meant something extra to the Snapshot team.
“It was great to [finally] show the work we’d done on the data side of Snapshot,” said Stenglein. “In some ways, it took longer than we expected, because we thought that we’d have stuff to share right away. However, Snapshot’s value is the accumulation of data and the time series we’ve built up over the years, so it was appropriate that it took some time to get to the first publication.”
2020: An Important Year for Snapshot
2020 was a weird but important year for Snapshot. According to Stenglein, the team didn’t slow down much in 2020. In fact, many important milestones happened this year. The first of which was a huge boom of activity on Zooniverse.
People suddenly had more free time than usual, and many people used that time to classify photos on Zooniverse. Snapshot Wisconsin’s page saw substantially more users (and specifically new users) than normal. No surprise that photos were being classified faster as well. In fact, the team even had to adjust staff responsibilities to make sure there were photos on the platform. What a great problem to have, right?
Another exciting change during 2020 was the release of the Snapshot Wisconsin Data Dashboard, an interactive tool that lets the public play with Snapshot data. Anyone could explore the data of 19 Wisconsin species and see where (and when) each species was detected.
Stenglein said that releasing a product like the Data Dashboard had been the plan from the beginning, but the team didn’t originally know what form it would take. “Open data has been an important goal of the project, especially because of our collaboration with NASA and the University of Wisconsin.” It just took time to figure out what form the product would take and to make sure the data were accurate enough.
Most of our volunteers will know that Snapshot Wisconsin also reached a total of 50 million photos near the end of 2020. That is an impressive amount of data to receive and process. According to Stenglein, this milestone meant that Snapshot was finally a “big project.”
“It meant that we had the data that we wanted, and everything was working. There was a big sense of accomplishment, and for me, it meant that all that planning had paid off,” said Stenglein.
The fact that so many milestones happened in 2020 speaks to the sustained efforts of our volunteer base. Stenglein said, “The volunteers totally rallied and continued to bring the data in. That kept the project going. The fact that volunteers kept checking their cameras and classifying photos was big for us. Thank you.”
Reflecting on the Past
As the end of 2021 inches closer, the team reflected on where they’ve come as a program since Stenglein’s backyard experiments in 2014. They remember the near-miss with the elk cameras and the statewide launch in 2018. They remember the first rare species detection and the release of the first public-facing data visualization product, the Data Dashboard.
It has taken a lot of work to get to this point, both from our staff and our volunteers. The team wants to thanks its volunteers for their contributions over the years, whether you just joined or have been with us since the beginning. Every classification matters, just as all of our volunteers matter to us. Thank you for seven years of excitement and support!
September #SuperSnap
Check out this #SuperSnap of a woodchuck caught by one of our cameras in La Crosse County! Also known as groundhogs, these furry rodents are true hibernators during the cold winter months in Wisconsin. During this time, they can drop their body temperature down to 37 °F and lower their heart rate from 80 to 5 beats per minute. They typically emerge just in time to provide a spring weather forecast in early February. 😉
A huge thanks to Zooniverse participant @oregano for the #SuperSnap nomination!
Continue classifying photos on Zooniverse and hashtagging your favorites for a chance to be featured in the next #SuperSnap blog post. Check out all of the nominations by searching “#SuperSnap” on the Snapshot Wisconsin Talk boards.
Highlighting Sandhill Cranes on the Data Dashboard
The following piece was written by OAS Communications Coordinator Ryan Bower for the Snapshot Wisconsin newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, visit this link.
Continuing with the bird theme, the Snapshot Team wanted to highlight one of the five specific species that can be chosen while classifying photos: the sandhill crane. At the same time, the team wanted to use the new 2020 data on the Data Dashboard, so they decided to do both!
The team invited fellow DNR researcher, Jess Jaworski, Assistant Waterfowl Research Scientist within the Office of Applied Science, to look through the sandhill crane data on the Data Dashboard. Jaworski is currently working on waterfowl research, but she previously worked with cranes.
Jaworski’s graduate research involved studying the nesting behaviors of cranes in Wisconsin. “My graduate research was focused on the nest success of the reintroduced whooping crane population at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. The majority of my work was monitoring incubation behaviors of both whooping cranes and sandhill cranes under duress of an avian-specific black fly. This fly caused a wide-spread and synchronous abandonment of nests.” Jaworski put up several trail cameras at nests and went through thousands of photos to monitor behaviors at those nests; Not that different from what Snapshot Wisconsin does.
A Bit Of Background On Sandhill Cranes
Before we dive in, let’s make sure everyone knows a bit about sandhill cranes. Jaworski was happy to share her knowledge of sandhill crane behavior.
Wisconsin’s sandhill cranes are part of the Eastern population of migratory sandhill cranes, and there are over 70,000 individuals in this population. As implied by the term “migratory,” they don’t spend the entire year in Wisconsin. Jaworski explained that these birds spend the winter down South. Around mid-March, they come back north to their breeding grounds and establish pair bonds.
Sandhill cranes are typically a monogamous species, so they will find a mate and pair off if they don’t already have one. “They usually try to find a pair bond within up to two years of birth, and they start nesting at three to six years in open marsh wetlands, although sandhill cranes can nest in a wide variety of habitats. They hopefully will hatch within a 28-day incubation period and fledge their young within two to three months. Once that is done [usually in September/October], they migrate back to their wintering grounds.” Come the next March, they start the cycle over again.
Diving In To The Data Dashboard
Jaworski was curious how well the trail camera data would match the description she gave above. The team sat down with her to see. At first glance, Jaworski said the data seemed pretty consistent with what she knows about their behaviors and where cameras were located around the state.
Take the map of detections by county, for example. Jaworski pointed out a higher percentage of crane detections in the southeast quadrant of the state. “That is consistent with their habitat [preferences]. They typically nest in open marshes, and the map matches where I know wetlands exist in the state,” said Jaworski. “Dodge County has cranes in the Horicon Wetland Area, for example. To the northwest, there are more cameras picking up these birds, potentially from the Crex Meadow Area. There is a large amount of birds in Adams County nearby to Juneau County where birds nest at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, which is where I did my graduate work.”
Jaworski also looked at detections by the ecological landscape, a clickable option to the left of the map. Instead of counties, the map is blocked out into 16 regions with unique ecological attributes and management opportunities. “Generally, the southern and eastern sections of the state have more open, wetland areas, so I’m not surprised there are more detections in those areas. There are also a lot of agricultural fields here too,” said Jaworski.
“Sandhill cranes can adapt easily to human-made landscapes like agricultural fields, and it isn’t uncommon to see them nesting in smaller wetlands near agricultural fields, for example. If there are a lot of cameras in these areas, then there will be more sightings of sandhill crane.” In contrast, the northern part of the state tends to be more forested land, so the southeast is the ideal habitat for a crane looking to build a nest.
Activity By Month And Hour Of The Day
So far, the detection locations matched what Jaworski expected to see, but one of the more interesting features of the dashboard is the breakdown of detections by month and by hour of the day. How well would the data hold up?
Jaworski started with the month data and immediately zeroed in on the lull in detections during the winter months. “This is exactly what I’d expect to see,” said Jaworski. “These migratory cranes are down south in their winter grounds [during these months]. When you get to March and April, I see a heightened activity pattern from cranes migrating back and nesting. Then, there is a lull again later in the year, as they start migrating back south.”
Jaworski also noticed that the migration south occurs over a much longer period of time than the migration back, as seen by a more gradual decline in detections in September and October. “That could be a product of different nest initiation times or different successes/failures throughout the nesting period. If birds nested earlier, then they will have fledged their young earlier than others and potentially leave the state sooner.” Alternatively, pairs who failed to successfully rear a fledgling may start over again if there is time. These pairs wouldn’t be able to migrate as early as pairs who succeeded on their first try, and that may lead to more detections later in the year.
The Snapshot team discussed how the placement of cameras also can influence the detection of species like the sandhill crane. Not all species spend their time in areas that are easy for trail cameras to watch. Not many Snapshot cameras overlook the center of a lake or marsh, which can lead to biases in detections for certain species.
However, Jaworski did confirm that cameras set up near-ideal nesting habitats will be much more likely to detect cranes. Cranes can be seen while they are up and about from their nests, looking for food, or when adults swap who is incubating their nest.
Jaworski also looked at sandhill crane activity throughout the day. “In the morning hours, they will leave their roosting areas. When pairs are forming pair bonds, they will do dawn unison calls. You can often hear them in the early morning hours, [and the calls are quite distinct]. Throughout the day, they are probably feeding and moving about the wetland, so detections are more common then. In the evening, they return to their roosting site for the night.”
All in all, there were pretty clear patterns in the activity graph, and those patterns match what Jaworski expected to see. There is a small amount of variation between the hours of the daytime, but Jaworski didn’t think those peaks and valleys represented any meaningful behaviors for sandhill cranes. Jaworski said, “It is hard to determine fine-tuned patterns throughout the day. It could simply be from a bias in where the cameras are placed.”
The 2020 Data Are Accurate And Consistent
Jaworski and the Snapshot team adjusted the date slider in the left-most column of the dashboard to look at only the 2020 data. The 2020 data showed all of the same patterns that we’ve already mentioned and is consistent with what we know about where cranes are distributed across the state. “It shows that there is nothing unusual about this past year that indicated sandhill cranes are moving from their range or aren’t where you would normally see them occur,” said Jaworski.
Jaworski played around with the date slider some more and looked at each of the other years’ data individually. She noticed that the number of detections increased each year, starting from 2017. “It is really cool that detections are increasing. It says that interest in the program is also increasing,” said Jaworski. “Snapshot’s expansion each year provides more information about where these birds are located. Each year, you will find more detections, which helps inform research for this species. I also really like that there is a record of that data so that we can go back and analyze it if any questions arise in future studies.”
Jaworski’s Parting Thoughts
Before everyone parted ways, Jaworski shared some final thoughts with the team about the program and its impact.
“It’s wonderful that a program like Snapshot exists. If somebody is interested in knowing what is going on with a particular species, it is awesome that Snapshot allows people to find that information through the Data Dashboard. It is a great opportunity for people to get involved.
Additionally, that type of cooperation between researchers and those who aren’t in research is invaluable and helps inform [our] research. Its great from a research perspective and a curiosity perspective when we collaborate.
Plus, getting involved [in citizen science] can spark an interest in a science career! A lot of us in research didn’t initially start out that way. Many of us started out as citizens who observed something interesting or maybe as kids who tagged along with our parents while they were doing outdoor activities. Looking at species or finding out what a scientist did inspired us.
My family comes from a natural resource background. My dad started out as a forester, and my mom worked as a park ranger and a boating officer in New Mexico. I tagged along with my mom quite often when she was giving presentations at the nature center. We were outside recreating a lot, camping and fishing. It had a big influence on my life and my career choice.”
Jaworski encouraged more people to check out the Data Dashboard and learn something new about one of the species available. The Snapshot team suggests looking at the data in a similar way to how Jaworski did, piece by piece and thinking about what a species might be up to in different areas and at different times. It is a great way to think about the lives of these species. Plus, with the addition of the 2020 data, there is more data than ever to look at.
July #SuperSnap
This Wisconsin icon from Iowa County is crowned our July #SuperSnap! Badgers don’t show up often on Snapshot Wisconsin cameras, and it is even more rare to capture one in the daytime. Have you ever seen a badger on your trail camera? Or even better, in person?
A badger captured on a Snapshot Wisconsin trail camera.
A huge thanks to Zooniverse participant @WINature for this #SuperSnap nomination.
Continue classifying photos on Zooniverse and sharing your favorites with #SuperSnap – your submission might just be next month’s featured photo! Check out all of the nominations by searching “#SuperSnap” on the Snapshot Wisconsin Talk boards.
Using Snapshot’s Bird Photos in New Ways
The following piece was written by OAS Communications Coordinator Ryan Bower for the Snapshot Wisconsin newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, visit this link.
A male American woodcock stretches his wings skyward in a courtship display, a great-horned owl strikes an unknown target on the forest floor and a male northern cardinal duteously feeds his newly fledged young.
These are moments in the lives of birds captured by Snapshot Wisconsin trail camera photos. Until recently, however, many of these avian images were hidden within the Snapshot Wisconsin dataset, waiting to be uncovered by a team of bird enthusiasts. Unlike how they normally watch birds, from behind a pair of binoculars, this time they were behind a keyboard.
When Snapshot volunteers classify an image, they normally can choose from a list of around 40 wildlife species. Only five of these species are among Wisconsin’s 250 regular bird species: wild turkey, ruffed grouse, ring-necked pheasant, sandhill crane, and the endangered whooping crane. These five species are options on the list because they either are of special management interest within the Wisconsin DNR or are easier to detect by Snapshot Wisconsin cameras.
The rest of the bird photos are classified into a catchall group, called “Other Bird.” Until recently, the “Other Bird” images were considered incidental images, but the increasing size of this category caught the attention of the Snapshot Wisconsin team. In fact, “Other Bird” is the second most common classification of the six bird categories, only second to Wild Turkey (Figure 1, Panel A), which comprises over a quarter of all bird photos.
The team reached out to the Wisconsin DNR’s Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation (NHC) to brainstorm ideas on how to leverage the “Other Bird” dataset, which had amassed 150,000 images at the time and was still growing.
Planting A Seed Of Collaboration
During their discussion with the NHC, the idea was brought up that these “Other Bird” images could contribute to the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II (WBBA II). The WBBA II is an enormous, multi-year field survey to document breeding birds and their distribution across the state. Information like the frequency of breeding and which areas birds are breeding in help the DNR see changes in breeding status for many bird species. This information can also be compared to data from the previous survey (from 1995 to 2000) and sets a benchmark for future comparisons as well.
The current survey uses data collected from between 2015 and 2019. Coincidentally, the earliest Snapshot images are from 2015 as well, so the dates of the survey aligned quite well. This collaboration seemed like a good fit.
However, there are some important differences between data collected from birding in the field and from images captured by Snapshot trail cameras. For example, many birds spend much of their time in the canopy, outside the camera’s field of view. Additionally, birders often use sound cues to identify signs of breeding in the field. Trail camera images do not contain these types of breeding cues. Lastly, certain breeding behaviors can be too fleeting to observe from a set of three images.
The team wasn’t sure yet if the trail camera photos would truly contribute much to the WBBA II.
A Collaboration Was Born
Members of the Snapshot Wisconsin and NHC teams ran a test of the “Other Bird” photos. They reviewed a small, random subset of images and learned that many of the birds could be identified down to the species level. The teams also found enough evidence of breeding, such as sightings in a suitable habitat (for breeding) or the presence of recently fledged young. Both teams decided to go ahead with the collaboration and see what they could find.
The full dataset was sent to a special iteration of Zooniverse, called the Snapshot Wisconsin Bird Edition, and birders began classifying. All of the “Other Bird” images were classified down to the species level, as well as assigning a breeding code to each image. In just over a year, the large collection of bird photos was classified, thanks to some dedicated volunteers.
The NHC’s Breeding Bird Atlas Coordinator, Nicholas Anich, extracted these new records and added them to the WBBA II. The atlas utilizes a statewide survey block system that is based on a preexisting grid from the United States Geological Survey. The survey block system requires that certain blocks be thoroughly surveyed in order for the atlas to have adequate statewide coverage, and many of the new Snapshot data points contributed to these priority survey blocks. Anich said, “[The Snapshot data] will be valuable information for the WBBA II, and we even discovered a few big surprise species, [such as] Spruce Grouse, Western Kingbird, and Whooping Cranes.”
In addition to these rare species, many of the high-value classifications were what Anich described as breeding code “upgrades.” The observed species already had been recorded in a given block, but the photos showed stronger evidence of breeding than had previously been reported. For example, an adult of a given species may have already been spotted in the area during the breeding season, but a photo showed a courtship display. The courtship display is stronger proof of breeding in the area than a single adult sighting.
How Useful Were the Snapshot Photos?
Both the (in-person) birding efforts and the trail camera photos picked up species that the other did not, so both approaches brought different strengths to the table.
One of the strengths of the trail cameras was that they are round-the-clock observers, able to pick up certain species that the in-person birding efforts missed. Anich said he noticed that nocturnal species (American Woodcock and Barred Owl) and galliforms (Wild Turkey, Ruffed Grouse) were more common in the Snapshot dataset than reported by the birders in the field, in certain areas at least. “Running into gamebirds was a bit the luck of the draw,” Anich said.
Both Anich and the Snapshot team agreed that the trail cameras were best used in conjunction with in-person surveys, rather than a substitute for each other because they each observed a different collection of species.
Insights Into The “Other Bird” Category
As a bonus for anyone who is interested in this project, the Snapshot team analyzed the photos classified for the WBBA II and created an infographic of the orders and families included. The photos included were captured between 2015 and 2019.
An immediate trend the team saw was that many of the birds were from species with larger body sizes, ground-dwelling species and species that spend time near or on the ground. For example, Anseriformes (ducks and geese) and Pelecaniformes (herons and pelicans) are the second and third most common order in the “Other Bird” category. The next most observed groups include woodpeckers, hawks, eagles, owls and shorebirds. While these birds may not spend all of their time near the ground, food sources for these species are often found in the stratum, an area where most trail cameras are oriented.
It was interesting that the most common order (comprising over half of the “Other Bird” classifications) was from the bird order Passeriformes (perching birds or songbirds). This order does not initially appear to fit the trend of ground-dwelling or larger-bodied birds. However, closer inspection revealed that the most common families in this order did fit the trend. For example, Turdidae (thrushes, especially American Robins), Corvidae (crows, ravens and jays) and Icteridae (blackbirds and grackles) comprised much higher percentage of the photos than any other families.
Thanks To Everyone Who Helped Classify Bird Photos On Zooniverse!
Overall, the Snapshot Wisconsin Bird Edition project was a huge success. In total, 154 distinct bird species were identified by nearly 200 volunteers, and over 194,000 classifications were made. The Snapshot Wisconsin and WBBA II teams extend a huge thank you to the Zooniverse volunteers who contributed their time and expertise to this project. The team was happy to see such strong support from the Wisconsin birding community, as well as from around the globe.
If you weren’t able to help with this special project, stay tuned for other unique opportunities to get involved as Snapshot continues to grow and use its data in new ways. If you contributed to the project, reach out to the Snapshot team and let them know what your favorite species to classify was.
The 2020 Data Are Now Available on the Data Dashboard
The following piece was written by OAS Communications Coordinator Ryan Bower for the Snapshot Wisconsin newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, visit this link.
The Snapshot Team is happy to announce that the data from 2020 are now available on the Data Dashboard. Explore the 2020 dataset yourself today!
Snapshot’s Data Dashboard is a data visualization tool that lets the public interact with the data collected from over 2,000 trail cameras spread across the state. The Data Dashboard first was made available to the public in October 2020 and showcased the data of 18 species. Since then, an additional species have been added to the list, and the Snapshot Team plans to add more over time.
One of the unique features of the dashboard is that it lets people choose which data they want to visualize. You can look at data from individual years by selecting the desired date range on the slider along the left side of the dashboard. Four distinct years (2017-2020) are available to peruse. When a new date range is selected, the map of Wisconsin will update and show only the data for the selected dates, allowing anyone to see trends over time.
Check out the 2020 data on Snapshot Wisconsin’s Data Dashboard:
https://widnr-snapshotwisconsin.shinyapps.io/DataDashboard
New Team Member
Hi everyone! I’m Jessica Knackert, one of the newest additions to the Snapshot Wisconsin volunteer management team. Before coming to the DNR, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I studied zoology, science communication, and environmental studies. I engaged in a lot of great opportunities to share science with the public during my undergraduate career. I wrote numerous articles on research related to climate change, urban canids, and biotechnology. I also provided hands-on demonstrations at community science events focused on culturing stem cells and caring for non-human primates.
Outside of science outreach, I was a research assistant for the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at UW-Madison. I supported a graduate student examining the impact of an African lion reintroduction in Akagera National Park, Rwanda. This project fell in the same realm of wildlife research as Snapshot Wisconsin by using trail cameras to monitor animal populations and behavior. I also worked at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Being a part of the visitor services department gave me the chance to interact with thousands of guests from all over the nation each day. This role also allowed me to broaden the Zoo’s guided tour program by incorporating topics like conservation, wildlife research, and animal enrichment.
Giraffe from Akagera National Park (https://www.africanparks.org/the-parks/akagera)
Working for a project like Snapshot Wisconsin provides the perfect opportunity to combine my experience in both the research and outreach sides of science. While I loved classifying photos of iconic African wildlife halfway across the world, I’m eager to refamiliarize myself with the diversity of species that live closer to home. I’m also excited to apply my training in science communication to expand upon and diversify educator outreach for the project. Snapshot Wisconsin is a great way for people of all ages to gain first-hand experience in learning the scientific process. Greater educator participation would allow students across the state to explore Wisconsin’s great outdoors while engaging with DNR professionals and other community members when inside the classroom.
June #SuperSnap
It is time to bring back the monthly #SuperSnap ! Check out this series of a bobcat from Trempealeau County. This individual is wonderfully camouflaged with its environment, blending in with last year’s decaying plant matter in this spring photo series. Bobcats (Lynx rufus) have a distinctive mottled fur coat that allows them to disappear from sight in a great variety of landscapes. This characteristic contributes to their impressive adaptability; they are the most widespread wild cat in North America!
There were lots of amazing submissions this month. A huge thanks to Zooniverse participant @AUK for this #SuperSnap nomination.
Continue classifying photos on Zooniverse and sharing your favorites with #SuperSnap – your submission might just be next month’s featured photo! Check out all of the nominations by searching “#SuperSnap” on the Snapshot Wisconsin Talk boards.
Sources:
https://sciencing.com/adaptations-bobcat-8153982.html
https://www.britannica.com/animal/bobcat
Population Dynamics for Tracking Wildlife Populations Through Time
In wildlife conservation and management, population estimates are highly desired information and tracking them gives important insights about the health and resilience of a population through time. For example, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WI DNR) annually estimates the size of the deer population in more than 80 Deer Management Units (roughly the size of counties). Fun fact – Snapshot Wisconsin contributes data on deer fawn-to-doe ratios to make these population estimates possible.
Annual population growth can be estimated by dividing the population estimate in the current year by the population estimate in the previous year (we call this growth rate lambda). A lambda = 1 is a stable population, a lambda < 1 is a declining population, and a lambda > 1 is a growing population.
Examples of graphs showing stable, growing, and declining populations based on their lambda value.
What leads to the stability, growth, or decline of a population is the foundation of population dynamics. Population dynamics are a way to understand and describe the changes in wildlife population numbers and structure through time. The processes for growth are births and immigration into the population, and the processes for decline are deaths and emigration away from the population, which leads to the following formula at the heart of population dynamics:
Population size this year = Population size last year + births – deaths + immigrants – emigrants
These young turkey poults would contribute to the number of “births” in a population estimate for turkeys.
This cottontail fell prey to a red fox. Animals that have died would contribute to the number of “deaths” in the population estimate for their species.
In established wildlife populations we often focus solely on the births (called recruitment) and deaths within a wildlife population and assume immigration and emigration are equal and therefore cancel each other out.
For deer, the birth part of the equation is captured by those fawn-to-doe ratios mentioned earlier, and the death portion is estimated as a combination of mortality sources. One source is deer harvest, and because Wisconsin requires registration of harvested deer, we have a pretty good understanding of this mortality source. Other mortality sources are from natural causes and are best assessed through radio-collaring and tracking deer through their lifetimes.
This deer is part of the WI DNR’s radio-collar tracking program.
Bobcat and fisher are two other Wisconsin species whose births and deaths are estimated annually. For these species, the recruitment into each population is estimated from our understanding of how many kittens (bobcat young) and kits (fisher young) are born into the population. The data come from the reproductive tracts of harvested females. The reproductive tracts contain scars for each placenta that was attached, thereby providing information on pregnancy rates and litter sizes. Similar to deer, information on mortality in these population comes from registered harvest and estimates of other non-harvest sources of mortality collected from radio-collaring research studies.
A bobcat with a WI DNR radio-collar.
Bobcat kittens captured on a Snapshot Wisconsin trail camera.
We are developing ways for Snapshot Wisconsin to contribute to our understanding of wildlife population dynamics. A real value of Snapshot Wisconsin is that it tracks all types of wildlife. For each species, we can develop metrics that will help us better track its population dynamics, and therefore gain a better understanding of the current status and trajectories of our wildlife populations.
One of these metrics is the proportion of cameras that capture a photo of a species within a time and spatial area. We can treat this metric as an index to population size, which is very useful for tracking populations across space and time. If we see a trend in the proportion of cameras in some part of the state showing an increase or decrease in this metric, that gives us information about the distribution and movement of species. For example, the southern border of fisher distribution in Wisconsin (currently around the center of the state) has been thought to be shifting further south. This metric can help us document when and where this shift may be occurring. This metric is now tracked for 19 Wisconsin species on the Snapshot Wisconsin data dashboard.
In the following graphics, you can see the proportion of trail cameras detecting bobcat in each ecological landscape of Wisconsin in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The patterns are consistent across these three years and show the distribution of bobcats is across two-thirds of the state. We will be tracking this metric and others for bobcats, as well as for other Wisconsin species.
Maps showing proportion of bobcat detections on Snapshot Wisconsin cameras in different ecological landscapes in 2017 (far left), 2018 (middle), and 2019 (far right).
The power of Snapshot Wisconsin is just beginning to emerge as we are collecting consistent, year-round, and multi-year data in this effort. Thanks to all of our volunteers who help make this possible!
Volunteer Highlight- River Bend Nature Center in Racine County
The following piece was written by OAS Communications Coordinator Ryan Bower for the Snapshot Wisconsin newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, visit this link.
Snapshot Wisconsin volunteers have been asking to hear about unique ways others engage with the program. Today, the Snapshot Wisconsin team highlights, not an individual, but a group that manages one of the longer-running Snapshot trail cameras – River Bend Nature Center (RBNC) in Racine County.
RBNC is an outdoor environmental education center that leases and manages about 80 acres of upland and lowland forest, as well as a six-acre prairie, from the county. River Bend’s primary mission is environmental education, conservation and sustainability with a variety of programs for all ages, ranging from little tikes to seniors.
Christa Trushinsky, Naturalist and Director of Education at RBNC, has worked at the nature center since 2016 and oversees their Snapshot trail camera. “I went to grad school for Environmental Conservation, so I’m very interested in exactly what Snapshot Wisconsin does, looking at the dynamics of land and the species that use it,” said Trushinsky. Trushinsky first heard about the program from a Snapshot Wisconsin team member she went to graduate school with and got in touch with her to learn more.
Little did Trushinsky know, that connection would later play a role in developing many of the nature center’s programs.
River Bend Nature Center, Racine County, Spring 2021
A Good Fit for River Bend Nature Center
River Bend has been hosting a trail camera for four years now and has found some intriguing ways to incorporate Snapshot photos into their teaching. “Snapshot Wisconsin is such a crucial tool for what we are trying to do here, especially for species that are elusive or nocturnal,” said Trushinsky.
Trushinsky said they often use Snapshot photos in their Skulls, Skins, and Scat program to help kids identify species that they wouldn’t normally be able to see. “Since some animals are nocturnal or very elusive, we can use the images to prove that these animals are out there [in the forest] and using the landscape,” explained Trushinsky. “Seeing proof of these animals in the neighboring forest makes them real to the kids in a special way. The animals are more than
something they see on TV – they are real and nearby.”
The trail camera pictures also act as a segue to the hands-on portion of the program, where participants look for animals and signs of animals (e.g. nests, burrows and tracks). “If we find an animal that can be handled, we talk to the kids about how to do so gently and appropriately,” said Trushinsky. Sometimes the children interact with an animal for the first time, such as feeling a slug’s sliminess or a snake’s scaliness. “That’s all part of it, showing them how to handle wildlife appropriately, as well as which to respect and stay away from.”
RBNC incorporates Snapshot pictures in other ways as well. Staff have introduced the concept of predator-prey relationships to children by showing time-lapse photos of predators tracking their prey. Trushinsky recalled an example of a doe walking by the camera, and a minute later, a coyote followed closely behind. Trushinsky uses Snapshot photos to start discussions about different relationship dynamics between the species seen on the camera.
Trushinsky has also taken Snapshot images off-site and given presentations at schools and colleges. To highlight examples of camouflage, she shows participants sets of pictures from the trail camera and asks them if they can figure out where the animal is and identify it. “Basically, I introduce it as, ‘Hey, this is Snapshot Wisconsin. You guys could be doing this on your property!’ I talk about what [species] we see at River Bend and take them through the process of classifying photos. Kids especially seem to get a kick out of it,” said Trushinsky.
Learning Lessons Themselves
While most of what RBNC does is focused on educating others, they have also learned more about he land they manage by hosting a Snapshot trail camera. Their trail camera has confirmed which species inhabit their land, as well as how the species use the land at different times of the year.
The RBNC trail camera is in a unique location, tucked away in a floodplain area of the lowland forest. During the spring season, the Root River surges, spilling over into a nearby pond, flooding the lowland forest. The flooding dramatically changes the landscape around the camera. Herons, wood ducks, mallards, and other birds can be found wading and swimming in the forest around the camera. Since RBNC’s camera looks out over the flooded area, they capture some great images that have excited birders who visit the nature center. “These are species you typically don’t see using a forest habitat. You might also see swimming muskrats or mink [while the area is still covered in water],” added Trushinsky. “It’s offered a great place to raise early season ducklings — with lots of cover.”
As the season shifts towards summer, the water drains, and a new batch of animals begins to use the area. Tall grass soon fills everything the camera sees, and species like deer move in. Does raise their fawns in the tall grass, and other little land creatures start to emerge.
Trushinsky said the trail camera pictures tell such a different story every season, with different animals showing up and using the land in their own unique ways. “The Snapshot camera helps us see what species are out there and if there are any novel or threatened species we need to be aware of. The presence of these species may even impact our land use plans,” said Trushinsky.
To date, RBNC’s camera has seen deer, opossums, raccoons, mink, muskrats, coyotes, mallards and great blue herons at this single camera location, just to name a few. They have also been able to identify certain butterfly and bird species (like the golden warbler) from the images, even though Snapshot doesn’t currently classify these species. The RBNC staff are hoping to see a river otter this year, but they haven’t seen one at this location yet.
Trushinsky shared her thoughts on joining Snapshot Wisconsin and the center’s unique camera location. Check out the video to hear her describe the camera in her own words.
Advice for Others
Trushinsky had some parting advice for other nature centers and groups who are considering hosting a Snapshot trail camera. “Snapshot is something very easy to get into and do. There isn’t that much of a time commitment needed. You can leave the camera out there and check it every three months. The biggest time commitment is just getting to the camera and classifying the photos.”
Trushinsky also shared some of the little tricks that she has discovered over the years.
- Make sure the camera is in a place where you already see signs of wildlife. You won’t capture many photos of animals if wildlife aren’t using that area.
- Put the camera in a location that is harder for people to get to, especially if you have people who visit your land. Whenever you go out there, you leave a scent, which can impact how animals use the area. It’s good to use the same route to the camera with each visit.
- Be ready to thaw a frozen lock in the winter. Trushinsky learned that one the hard way.
- Be prepared—wear mosquito repellent or longer layers in the summer and burr-resistant clothing in the fall. If you go through tall grass to get to your camera, always check for ticks in the spring!
- Be aware that there may be a lot of little bugs that like to make their home inside of the camera case. Bring a tool or rag to remove them if you don’t like insects.
- If you are using a tree to mount your camera, don’t forget to loosen the cable lock or strap on it – that allows the tree to continue to grow.
If you are thinking about hosting your own Snapshot trail camera, check out the Snapshot Wisconsin website or visit the Apply to Host a Trail Camera page! You never know what you might find in your area.
