Behind the Camera

A member of the WWF Tiger Team in Sumatra poses with a WWF camera trap.
© WWF

Although infrared sensors allow camera traps to take pictures on their own, WWF scientists and field staff can claim full credit for the amazing images you see here. These teams do extensive research -- gathering information through community questionnaires and by conducting surveys of animal tracks -- in order to determine the best area to place their cameras. Then they must trek to remote locations to obtain the film and ensure that the camera traps are functioning properly. It is also important to remember that these pictures, while amazing in their own right, are actually scientific data that scientists will use to obtain critical information about wildlife and their habitats. Meet some of our dedicated conservationists and find out more about their work and what makes them tick.
Sunarto is a wildlife biologist and the new 'tiger man' in the Tesso Nilo Landscape, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Born on Java, Sunarto has spent most of his life away from home, studying at universities in Jakarta, Indonesia and in Norwich, UK, and conducting research in Bukit Barisan Selatan and Kerinci Seblat National Parks.

Wildlife biologist Sunarto prepares to depart in search of tiger tracks. His team often uses four-wheel-drive vehicles and trail motorbikes to reach villages and accessible target areas.
© Peter Prokosch

Currently, Sunarto is working with the WWF species program -- which is supporting his PhD research in Fisheries and Wildlife Science from Virginia Tech -- focusing on tiger ecology and distribution in the Sumatran province of Riau. Sunarto and his team are using camera traps to estimate the population of tigers and study their range and movement in order to help them survive. Sunarto is passionate about his research and believes strongly in its value to conservation.
"I cannot imagine getting as much information and knowledge about the wildlife in the region without the aid of the camera traps," he says. "As the saying goes, 'A picture says a thousand words.' It is much easier and faster to convince people the importance of an area or a species when you show them these pictures."
His project's specific research objectives include establishing tiger presence/absence maps; identifying core breeding areas for tigers; pinpointing hotspots for tiger-human conflict and developing or refining strategies to mitigate it in the Riau province; establishing density estimates of tigers and prey in different habitat types; and establishing a monitoring system for tigers and prey.
One of the biggest practical challenges of the tiger study is covering a large area (almost 12,000 square miles) with limited access and difficult terrain in a limited time. Sunarto and the Tiger Team typically go into the field for about ten days, using four-wheel-drive vehicles and trail motorbikes to reach villages and accessible target areas; in some cases they must use boats. Once in the target areas, the team moves about on foot, following existing human or game trails or creating their own. Often, they encounter people involved in illegal activities who are suspicious and not pleased with their presence.
Sunarto hopes to eventually track and monitor tigers using radio collars to document movement between protected areas -- currently, no such data exist for tropical rain forests.
He thinks that his work will help people in Riau live in a harmony with the wildlife, including tigers.
"I would like to see that the wildlife have enough room to survive and recover, while the people have enough and sustainable resources to live," he says. Within a shorter, time period, he thinks it is more realistic to expect that a few more conservation areas critical for the wildlife corridors are protected by government.

Long-term Plan

Wild Sumatran coffee

We are not the first group to search for orang pendek, but no group before us has simultaneously had so many cameras in the jungle. Given the little extant knowledge of orang pendek's behavior, territory, and other habits, our best chance of finding it depends on maximizing our field-time and coverage. Therefore, our plan is to:

·	Seek out suitable camera locations based on remoteness, reports of sightings, and other evidence such as previous collection of footprints and hair samples
·	Place at least 50 cameras in these locations.
·	Check the cameras every six weeks, replacing batteries and swapping memory cards.

The plan sounds so simple on paper: get some cameras, put them in the jungle, wait for orang pendek to show up! But we are continually amazed at how the environment conspires to complicate every step of the way. Every new research site requires weeks of scouting, making personal contacts, and applying for research permits from several layers of government bureaucracy. In addition, each expedition into the jungle is a major task to plan and implement. Guides and porters, transportation, food, batteries, and other equipment combine into a hefty load and price tag. And with all our cameras operating out in the field, we'll be spending at least half our time soaked, scratched, and sullied out in jungle! But we don't regret a single wet night or leech bite--what an amazing chance this is to show our world what mysteries nature still holds for us, waiting to be discovered and learned from!

Expedition Continued

At one camera site we cross a lake using the local canoes hollowed from a single tree trunk. Our crossing takes about an hour, periodically bailing water as the rocking edge of the canoe hovers just inches from the water. At another site, we have the good fortune of spending a couple of nights at one of the guides' farmhouse, which is a small one-room shelter on stilts.

Once we select a suitable tree for a camera, it usually takes about thirty minutes to physically mount it and set up the internal electronics. In addition, we must make careful note of the camera's position so that we can find it later. We do this using a combination of GPS coordinates, tree markings, and forest landmarks. 

Transportation across the lake

On camera maintenance trips, we use this location information to find the cameras and then spend about twenty minutes checking the integrity of the camera, its settings, and swapping memory cards and batteries. Checking the cameras often takes all day, but the jungle is pleasant and full of exotic sights and sounds. We often hear the calls of gibbons and birds, and occasionally sun bears and other animals.

Overlooking the jungle

Theft is naturally a concern. However, so far no camera we have placed has gone missing. A larger threat is moisture and insects. Already, one camera succumbed to an ant infestation, which destroyed the internal workings but produced some interesting images of gigantic, blurry ants!

Now that you have a feel for a jungle expedition, check out the next section for an overview of our long-term plan.

Expedition

Power supplies for 1 trip

The road to the trail head

Our expedition intervals are set by the battery life of the camera-traps, which is about six weeks. So, every six weeks we must service each camera: swapping out memory cards, replacing batteries, and performing any other maintenance that may be required. Some cameras are easy to get to, and require only a couple of days hike along a well marked path. Other cameras are much deeper in the jungle, and we must travel for several days just to reach them. On these longer trips we hire guides and several porters just to carry our equipment. Imagine the amount of food required by eight people for eight days. That's 192 meals! Each camera requires four D batteries, which means on a single trip we may have to bring up to 120 fresh batteries and carry out the 120 spent cells. That's nearly 50 lbs (23 kg) of batteries!

With our packs on our backs, we head into the jungle. First, we must reach the trail head. At our most remote location this means negotiating a steep 10.5 mi (17 km) road made mostly of thick, moist clay. The only way up is by motorcycle, slipping and sliding the whole way. After this hour long motorcycle ride, we begin walking, first through rice paddies, then finally entering the jungle. 

Our jungle shelter

During the rainy season (November - March) it rains nearly every day from about 3 in the afternoon until 7 in the evening. So we become accustomed to being soaked, despite all our rain gear. Fortunately, our incredibly talented guides can easily manufacture a clothesline from jungle vines. One item we can leave at home is the tent; with a few well-placed tree branches, the guides can create a sleeping, cooking, and clothes drying shelter tall enough to stand up inside.

Take Their Own Photographs?

These graphics demonstrate a typical camera trap set-up. The wildlife biologist will choose a likely spot along a well traveled, narrow path, such as the base of a cliff or along a narrow valley floor. How does the biologist know the path is used by snow leopards? Perhaps there will be feces (poop), or perhaps there will be a “scrape”. A scrape is a place where the snow leopard has marked its territory by scratching with its hind legs on loose sand or soil. In the photo above, the biologist has chosen a spot where snow leopards have scent marked a boulder. Snow leopards spray boulders with a pungent liquid from scent glands located under the base the tail. They also spread scent by cheek-rubbing on rocks or trees. In the photo, you can see the scent mark as a discoloration on the under side of the rock that the leopard appears to be looking at.

Scents help leopards to identify one another, or merely let one cat know that another has been there. Scent marks can mean “keep out,” where males wish to identify the boundaries of their home ranges. Usually a male cat’s range will include that of one or more females, but the ranges of more than one male may overlap. Scent marks help males and females find each other in the breeding season, and possibly also ensure that the genes of dominant males prevail. Snow leopards pay very close attention to these marks.

At the spot that the wildlife biologist has chosen, rocks are stacked to form a cairn, which is a fancy way to say “a rock pile”. The cairn is used to hide the camera and support it and the infrared triggering mechanism. The equipment is set up so that the infrared beam is snow leopard height – so that a snow leopard will interrupt it as it walks along the path. The interrupted infrared beam acts to trigger the camera shutter.

In the bottom illustration you see a typical placement for two cameras. Wildlife biologists prefer to use two cameras because they can get photos of both sides of the snow leopard making pelage patterns easier to identify. And that is why biologists use cameras in the first place. By carefully placing camera traps over a portion of snow leopard habitat and then monitoring them over an extended period, say a winter season, the biologist can get a very good idea of the number of cats in the study area. All of us get to see some very interesting photos of wild snow leopards.

So, the snow leopard walks along the trail, minding its own business. It interrupts the infrared beam and... presto! Without ever saying “cheese”, the snow leopard has taken its self-portrait.

In these three camera-trap photographs a wild snow leopard notices a scent mark on a nearby rock and investigates. The two photos at the top of the page were taken at the same instant by a two-camera trap. The photo on the left was taken by the camera hidden in the cairn you see at the bottom right corner of the photo on the right. Likewise, the photo on the right was taken by a camera hidden in the cairn you see in the photo on the left. Notice how well camoflaged this snow leopard is; it’s hard to distinguish it from the rocky background even at this short distance, isn’t it?

In the bottom photo, which was taken almost a month after the others, the same cat has returned to investigate the scent-marked rock. Scent marks and scrapes are ways in which snow leopards keep track of who’s who and who’s where.

Camera-Trapping

A camera-trap is triggered by the presence of an animal. However, we use this trap only to capture an unobtrusive photograph instead of the animal itself. A camera-trap consists of three basic parts: 1) a camera, 2) a heat/motion sensor, and 3) a power supply. The camera-trap is a box about a foot (30 cm) tall, six inches (15 cm) wide, and two inches (5 cm) thick. We mount it on a tree facing outward to observe the surrounding forest. All day and all night long, an electronic eye looks for heat in motion. When an animal passes in front of the trap, the camera detects its movement and body heat and quietly snaps a photograph. With the camera-traps we use, we can also take one minute videos after the photograph. With these videos we hope to observe the way orang pendek moves.

                               Camera-trap

Because our camera-traps are digital, we can fit many more images onto a single memory card than conventional film. Instead of the usual 24 pictures in a roll of film, each of our cards hold more than 170 picture/movie combinations! This allows us to keep the cameras undisturbed in the jungle for much greater periods of time than previously possible. The less we have to disturb the area around the trap, the greater our chances of photographing a rare, elusive animal like orang pendek.

Tapir photographed with one of our traps