Time for Data Collection!!!

It's time for what you all have been waiting for....DATA SETUP AND COLLECTION!!!!! So after taking a tour through the different trails the mammal group reconvened to make sure we have all of our batteries in the trail cameras and a whole lotta SD cards because we are going to be switching them out everyday. Usually when you are setting up trail cameras you set them up at what you think is an area where animals will congregate whether that's by a watering hole, by a good habitat structure, or by a good food source. The big key is to leave the cameras up for long enough that you're not continuously disrupting the surrounding environment and discouraging all the animals from coming close because humans are stinky. Some studies actually will leave up their trail cameras for a month and then come back to go through all the data. Our group of course does not have that luxury as we have only about five days in the actual rainforest getting data.

The camera setup day was probably the most intensive as we had to pick good spots that were slightly off-trail but also still accessible and safe for us to get to everyday. First we set up nine cameras in the small forest, some by the suspension bridge and others by some small clearings or mini-bridges in hopes of catching some mammals using the tools and resources around them. We finished setting them all up and were praying that with the harsh environment nothing would fall or break on us. Next we took a break and then were off to the large forest and teak plantation to set up the rest of our cameras. So the teak plantation is an area within the large forest but on a more straightforward path rather than the maze that we did our tour in. The owner of the area was curious to see what animals were out there so we were more than happy to help explore some more and see what we could catch on camera. There was also a mini bamboo forest on the way to the teak plantation where we set up a camera or two and was so cool to see. So if you're wondering what a teak plantation even looks like I attached a pic below. It definitely looks like Narnia to me which is absolutely how I would refer to it from that point on. We set up a fair amount of cameras here whether it was looking down the pathway or inside all the trees more. Once we finished setting up it was time to leave them alone and go play some UNO.

The next two days we checked all of the cameras (all in the same place we left them and not on the ground thank goodness). We came back to base camp after switching out all of the SD cards (so we would be sure each SD would have enough space). We started checking through each camera and if a camera didn't work then we would try to figure out if it was the SD card or the camera just being finicky (which happened more than you would think). This was of course hard as we are checking the footage after it has already been shot and there's not a lot of time or room for error which is why we rotated through so many cards because we want to collect as many sightings as possible before having to fly back home. Overall we workshopped any kinks we had in the plan pretty well and were able to get some pretty stinking cool pictures of some animals. Anybody heard of the Northern Tamandua???? Yeah that's what we caught using a suspension bridge on one of our cameras. DAY 3/4/5? DONE!!!

Onto the next day of adventures!!!!