I’ve been setting up wildlife cameras at natural pinch points and along trackways to see what’s going on when I’m not looking. I’ll admit, it feels invasive. Candid moments of animals are caught without permission, my cameras quiet enough that subjects don’t glance up even for the second or third shot, a black bear strolling past, a fox at a trot, a bobcat on its way somewhere. You never know what you’re going to get.
There’s a rising wave of nature surveillance where “critter cams” reveal hidden lives, becoming part of the scientific toolkit for biological fieldwork. For a researcher or anyone using these cameras recreationally, it’s exciting to return home with memory cards and sit at the screen to see what showed up. Thousands of images will be grass and boughs triggering my devices in the wind, and then a mule deer appears on its daily rounds, or a cottontail rabbit returns to its preferred nightly hide, eyes glowing bright.
As if taunting my watchful endeavors, two friends who knew where I’d placed a camera hiked out to it, stripped naked, and went feral. Painting their faces and bodies in mud, carrying wooden clubs, they went for shock value as for my scrolling through images. The camera caught several snapshots as they approached with suspicion and performative wonder. I laughed in dismay, saying over and over, that’s just beautiful. Beautiful because I’m the fool and they pointed it out brilliantly. What am I trying to capture by observing wildlife when they don’t know I’m there? Is it any of my business?
Science seems to say yes, it is our business. Camera trapping, as it’s called, is a research tool used to estimate animal abundances and understand their movements. It is a way of assessing species richness and behavior. In fields of management, the technique is indispensable, right along with collaring and banding. I was once a fan of non-management, letting animals do whatever they are going to do, but as I come to understand the range of human impact on every species I realize we are managing no matter what we do. Having more data leads, one would hope, to more beneficial treatment of creatures who are not us.
Personally, tracking is my preferred way of seeing who came through. As soon as winter sets in, the first snow is a canvas where every motion leaves a mark, tiny bird wings on a laden branch as fine as a fluttering eyelash. What had been simple woods the day before turns into traffic. With these cameras, now I can see who exactly is leaving the tracks. I feel like a thief, a bit mischievous, seeing a deer scratch its nose with a hind hoof unaware I’m scrutinizing her at a later date.
I’m doing this for a book project that has me peeling back the surface to see what animals are up to underneath. But the question tugs at me, should I be seeing them? Their privacy is something I appreciate, even envy. They are not captured the way we are, not subject to their passwords being stolen, or ads popping up as soon as they start talking about something. Isolation from us and our crowded, watchful habits is their saving grace.
Like most humans, my business is to know what’s going on. Same for other animals. They leave scrapes and scents and come sniffing for who has done the same. These cameras are what I’m doing to join them. But as remote monitoring technology becomes cheaper and more widely available, I pause, wondering if my watching is more of the same problem, pushing deeper into lives of animals who do best when we’re not there.
The emotional lives and toll of tragedy on the lives of animals among us is totally overlooked. I came over a rise on Cottonwood Creek Road to see a deer family, big buck, doe and half dozen you Gina standing at the edge of the road peering at the twisted and broken fawn that lay there after being struck and dragged by a big piece of human vehicle. It had just happened. The human monster was long gone, but the pain and horror of the loss to them was palpable. I stopped my truck and walked back to where the body lay on the pavement. I picked up the rag doll of a fawns body and carefully carried it 50 yards or so off the road and put it gently under a tree. The family watched me as I arranged the body to a sleeping position and then walked back to my truck. It was as if that had been appreciated and acknowledged. They looked at the body briefly then the big buck led them away and into the woods.
I will forever believe what I witnessed was an unspeakable tragedy for that family. I did the only thing I could think of to bring peace. It seemed it was appreciated.
Beautiful, Tim. Thank you for this sensitive touch in our often heartless world.
“ … the first snow is a canvas where every motion leaves a mark, tiny bird wings on a laden branch as fine as a fluttering eyelash.”
It’s similar to the finders keepers quandary although I agree with you 100% to leave as is. As hard as it may be.
My neighbor and I set our field cameras at the opposite sides of our respective suburban lots, hoping to see the resident family of red fox (a young one grabbed a hen early one morning, we frightened her off, the hen succumbed to her injuries). Gleefully, I checked my trail cam – hundreds, thousands of shots and minute videos of – field mice. The mice pose (the classic “reaching for grains on a stalk”), play (running along a branch of a fallen cherry tree), stare right at the camera. Attention-seeking, adorable little brats. I love your friends for their hijinks!
Might be worth recalling the simple extract from quantum theory that posits ‘the observer changes that which is observed’. I believe this effect occurs despite temporal delay (given that there is always a temporal delay in any of our sensory ‘apprehensions’ of reality). And even with observation via extremely mediated means—temporal, spatial, whatever— versus ‘direct’, embodied observation does not affect the operation of that quantum concept.
I too enjoy reading the less direct evidences, though there are many of the finer ones easily missed. To spend a life reading the indirect signals is to change the world: https://neoscenes.net/blog/category/images/witness
I like the passage from “The Interpretation of ordinary landscapes: geographical essays” by Meinig & Jackson: “Any landscape is so dense with evidence and so complex and cryptic that we can never be assured that we have read it all or read it aright. The landscape lies all around us, ever accessible and inexhaustible. Anyone can look, but we all need to see that it is at once a panorama, a composition, a palimpsest, a microcosm; that in every prospect there can be more and more that meets the eye. “
I like John H’s comment – and add that I am now super conscious that someone may be observing me in the wild, on my favorite trails. And now I must mask in nature as well as in society. And for that, I am so sad. I wonder if the wilder ones feel the same way? Surely, they know there is something odd the humans have stuck in that tree . . . (evidence: an older possum with a crooked tail trying to untie my field camera)
I used to volunteer for wildlife rehabbers and finally quit when I realized I was probably doing more harm than good. Hundreds of animals were being saved and released back into the wild, but alas, not all could be saved. I wondered about the trauma they felt during their stay at the shelter before released and how it affected them afterward. If at all. Now I follow a FB page about wild horse advocates who monitor and vaccinate with fertility drugs to keep the BLM from gathering them. It’s a horrifying relationship with that agency. Toxic and evil. The gathers are counter-productive, but do they stop? The science used by the BLM is suspect and geared toward favoring industrial sponsors. Even some ranchers claim there’s no conflict. Will more intimate monitoring such as you are doing help them understand? What you’re doing is laughably innocent, frankly. If the cameras don’t harm the animals, why worry about their privacy? Do they? Yet, if we know more about their relationships with their environment and other creatures, we will gain understanding. How can that be so questionable?
I for one am glad that here in Utah they’ve prohibited trail cameras on all public lands for part of each year. Seems like a fair balance.