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The goals of my camera trap project are clear. The first and most important goal is to record as many wildlife species as possible. The second goal, and the reason why my camera is set to video mode instead of photo mode, is to record the fascinating behaviors of these creatures in their natural environments. So, in an ideal world, I would like to record not only Armadillo and Ocelotbut I want to record Ocelot covering armadillo Use the leaves and save them for later use.
There is one species that lives throughout Costa Rica and often appears in my photos, but I am not particularly interested in them. Their behavior is often malicious or, frankly, disgusting. peopleEvery now and then, people are actually the focus of a project. I once worked on a security project that focused on placing cameras in places where electricity and internet couldn’t reach them and recording people who had no right to sneak by.
In most cases, humans are caught by mistake, and my purpose in shooting these videos is actually to record wildlife. These videos can be divided into three categories: harmless, illegal, and restricted.
harmless
This is easily my favorite category of human video. These are people out in nature doing their thing and accidentally becoming part of a wildlife monitoring program. People who fall into this category are hikers, national park staff, landowners, and cowboys. On private land, in addition to the local wildlife, I’ll document landowners enjoying their property, maintenance workers wielding machetes, and cowboys riding horses and yelling at cattle. In national parks and preserves, I’ll document staff diligently working and weekend explorers happily waving at my camera. This is a happy, non-destructive crowd.
Unlawful
I do have a problem with this group. These people are either trespassing, trying to steal something, poaching, or cutting down trees. I have a camera model that has no visible light at night, and often cover my cameras with camouflage netting because these people don’t want anyone to know what they are doing, and will gladly steal or destroy my cameras. I haven’t kept count, but I must have had over 20 camera traps stolen in the last five years.
These people also affect the quality of the wildlife videos I record. When I know someone might steal my camera, I often have to abandon some of the best camera trap locations because they are too conspicuous to camera thieves.
R-rated
This category can be either very exciting or very gross, depending on what you like. It’s not often, but occasionally I’ll record someone who is so convinced that they are alone in the woods that they are doing something private. Twice I’ve recorded someone just enjoying the fresh air of nature with all their heart.
There was a swimming enthusiast who wanted total “freedom” in the water, a man who thought flip-flops were the only necessary clothing for a forest hike, and another time, in a forest at a hotel, a worker must have been too far from the facilities when using the toilet because he accidentally lined himself up perfectly for the camera, and it was disgusting.
Costa Rica is a country with an incredibly rich biodiversity. The sheer variety of species that can be recorded with camera traps is fascinating to me, but there is one species that shares Costa Rica’s environment that I would very much like to avoid: our environment.
About the Author
Founder Vincent Losasso Guanacaste Wildlife Monitoringis a biologist who conducts research using camera traps throughout Costa Rica. Learn more about his projects Facebook or InstagramYou can also email him at: vincent@guanacastewildlifemonitoring.com
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