Aisle of Kits – Science Operations Center Library

The Snapshot Wisconsin team (mainly our awesome summer intern, Ally) spent a lot of time over the summer prepping equipment for our statewide launch. We had over 200 kits made and thought that was a good amount. None of us could have predicted the phenomenal response from new volunteers! Since August 9th we have had more than 1100 people signup to host Snapshot Wisconsin cameras across the state.  Additionally, more than 300 people had signed up in non-open counties over the last 2 years. So, things at Snapshot Wisconsin have been super busy, to put it mildly. We started our fall training schedule last week with in person training in Platteville and Darlington. This week we are off to Merrill and Crandon (the remainder of our training schedule can be seen here).  We also launched a new online training system, including brand new videos, last week. More than 200 people have completed the new online training system and we are working on getting them setup with MySnapshot accounts and getting equipment out the door. Thanks to all the volunteers for their patience and enthusiasm for getting started with our project. We have been working on some automation to better manage the multitudes of new volunteers, in time that should help us to be more efficient.

We are really excited to spend our fall traveling, meeting new volunteers and seeing new photos come in from all over Wisconsin.  Stay tuned for more behind the scenes blog posts to come!

Sarah and Taylor taking a much needed yoga break

Hi everyone,

My name is Emily Buege – I’m the newest Snapshot Wisconsin team member, and I wanted to do a quick blog post to introduce myself.  After obtaining my bachelor’s degree in ecology from Winona State University, I moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama where I began working toward my master’s degree in environment & natural resources.  In the mix, I also spent a summer working at the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota.

Me during my fieldwork in Belize.

My master’s thesis examined the distribution of nesting sites for several native fish species in the Bladen River in Southern Belize.  Specifically, I looked at which habitat variables seemed to be most important for each of four species as they chose a site suitable to brood their young.  All four species were cichlids, which are well-known for defending their eggs and fry against predators.  Not only did that parental behavior make for an easy way to identify and record the nest locations, but it was also fascinating to watch!

Fish checking out my submerged camera trap on the Bladen River.

Being that my project was through the University of Alabama’s Department of Geography, one can imagine that it was spatial in nature.  Combined with my preexisting passion for wildlife conservation, the skills and interests that resulted from my time at UA led me to my new position with Snapshot: Spatial Analyst and Database Manager.  I am very excited to dive into these roles, because the project is rich in spatially-explicit data!  This is especially true with the launch of Phase 2 – all corners of the state will be reporting wildlife data that has previously been unavailable.

In addition to making more maps with our new data, one of the efforts I’m looking forward to working on is data visualization.  Now that Snapshot Wisconsin has collected so much data, there are a lot of opportunities to do visualize that information.  Right now, we have no way of allowing the public to interact with the data or to view a select set of photos.  We hope that as the project grows, we can develop a tool to do just that.  I think that making data interactive and visual allows more people to connect with it on a deeper level.

See you out in the field and on the message boards!

Emily