This project is a collaboration with the Citizen Science project at the University of Arizona, US. The Citizen Science project surveys and monitors jaguars (Panthera onca) and ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) within the U.S. portion of the Northwestern Recovery Unit for the jaguar, Arizona, US. Wildlife cameras were used for monitoring.
Wildlife camera (Photo: Elke Kellner)
The role of the citizen scientists is to drive with their private four-wheel-drive car to remote areas, hike without trails to the wildlife cameras, maintain the cameras, gather data, and analyze, identify, and document wildlife observations from camera data. Citizen scientists with little or no knowledge or background in biology or wildlife conservation were trained to increase their knowledge of jaguars, ocelots, and their conservation, as well as scientific data collection methods. The project managers strongly believe that citizen scientists remain an underutilized resource for helping scientists collect and analyze data in these days of reduced funding and increasing need for long-term monitoring.
My interest in this project is to understand the motivation of the citizen scientists to invest voluntarily a lot of time and money, and to take the risk regarding wildlife in remote areas without internet access.
I conducted 21 semi-structured interviews, participatory observation of social gatherings and project meetings, and participated for two days in maintaining wildlife cameras and data collection to get a better understanding of the tasks of the citizen scientists. The publication is in preparation.
Participating in camera maintenance and data collection