Collecting field data on shy or nocturnal wildlife can be very time-consuming and ineffective. With LifeWatch, we use camera traps for wildlife monitoring. Camera traps register all medium- to large-sized animal species that approach the camera, while many researchers are mainly interested in a specific group of animals. Nevertheless, data on other species can be very useful to monitor changes in species compositions and the introduction of invasive alien species. Therefore, an overarching initiative such as LifeWatch can be help to unite camera trappers and to share as much information as possible with the scientific community. 

With LifeWatch we provide a standardised, high-quality set of camera traps to researchers and policymakers. We provide data management services (the Agouti platform) and we publish datasets using a community-developed data standard (camtrapDP). Information that can be typically derived from camera trap images include animal species, number of individuals, their sex, age class, and behaviour, and, in case the animals are individually tagged, their name or tag code. Images are often captured as a burst of images, which allows us to better understand their behaviour or measure their walking speed. 

Learn more about camera trapping