Conservation volunteers caught on camera!In Hluhluwe reserve, South Africa, we have camera traps set up to capture black rhino and leopard. We use camera traps as a non-invasive form of wildlife monitoring on a few of the Zululand Game Reserves where we are stationed.The camera traps are placed strategically and usually in hard to navigate areas. They are triggered by movement and use an infrared flash at night that doesn’t irritate the animals. The photographs are then stored until they are collected and studied. These camera traps are perfect for monitoring generally shy or nocturnal animals such as black rhino and leopard. By studying the photographs collected we are able to identify individual animals and plot their territories. This is critical to our ongoing research and makes it easier to monitor them in the future.
Our volunteers help us check these cameras and sort through the photos every 5 days. Our last group of Hluhluwe conservation volunteers Tieran Freedman, Tom Wilkie, Debora Studer, Ann DePuy and Sindhuja Sunder decided to have some fun in front of the camera.
By: Megan Lategan
