A camera trap is a fairly unsophisticated piece of technology. A camera, a motion sensor, an SD card, and a handful of regular old double A batteries make up the inventory of the most important components. A million brands making a million different models are for sale all over the world. If you live in certain parts of the planet, you could decide you want a camera right now, and a guy will drop one off on your doorstep by this evening. It’s an unremarkable, easily accessible product. This is true.
What’s also true is that a camera trap is a magical device that has the ability open a portal to a different world. A world far from air conditioning, TikTok, or even walls and ceilings. This is a forested world filled with a vast array of fascinating creatures. Sure we can enter the forest and walk around and feel like we’re somewhere new and different. The camera trap takes you a step further, into a forested world where no humans are present. In this place, the creatures that would never allow themselves to be seen by human beings are free to act naturally in their environment.
This is why I love camera trapping. Every time I remove an SD card from a camera, place it into my computer, and click play, I’m transported to a different world, 20 seconds at a time. At the top of my list of creatures that I hope to see when I click play are jaguars. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that in the forests around where I live, there are enormous spotted wild cats that weigh up to 200 pounds secretly living out their lives.
And their lives really are mysterious. The people who are interested in learning more about what these cats are up to must rely on camera traps, along with footprints and scat, to give them clues as to where they’re living and how they’re living their lives. A few of these jaguar researchers have banded together to contribute to a database of jaguars living in Guanacaste. Each jaguar has a unique spot pattern and based on that pattern, they receive a name and are entered into the database. The database is always growing, but right now there are 100 or so known jaguars.
In the last few months, I’ve been invited to send my jaguar videos to the keeper of the database so he can analyze each cat’s spotted coat, and we can all learn a little more about the jaguars that I’ve recorded. To my immense delight, I’ve learned that my camera traps have recorded at least 15 different jaguars (Maybe more. Sometimes it’s hard to see the spot pattern clearly.)
Some of them are previously known individuals, already documented by a researcher. Just the other day, I sent a video to be analyzed, and it turned out to be a well-known individual that another researcher had recorded just hours before my video. We figured out that this male jaguar had marched 13 kilometers in a span of a few hours.
While I love being able to add to the records of known individuals, what I find truly fantastic is identifying previously unknown animals. To date, I’ve been able to record 12 jaguars that are new to the database. That’s 12 massive wild cats that most likely nobody has ever seen before. Just walking around in the forest. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me to think about. Now take a look at the video below and join the handful of people who have ever seen these jaguars.
About the Author
Vincent Losasso, founder of Guanacaste Wildlife Monitoring, is a biologist who works with camera traps throughout Costa Rica. Learn more about his projects on facebook or instagram. You can also email him at: vincent@guanacastewildlifemonitoring.com
