IN PICTURES: Curious animals check out wildlife cameras in Swedish forests
A researcher in Sweden has been sharing images of reindeer, lynx, red deer and elk staring intently at the camera traps he and his team hang on trees in remote parts of Sweden.
Tim Hofmeester, a Dutch nature researcher based at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Umeå, said that the animals frequently spotted cameras and came to investigate them.
"We just hang them on a tree so you can easily see them," he said. "You can try to hide it, but animals will always notice if there's a change to their environment."
Hofmeester leads the 'Scandcam' project, a joint venture between SLU and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, which uses camera traps to study mammal groups in Sweden and Norway.
Earlier this month, he posted a picture of a rare white reindeer taken near Lainio, a village in the far north of Lapland.
Last year, I was running a camera trapping project up in Norrbotten. One of the sites close to Lainio was frequented a lot by #reindeer. This is the perfect time to see small calves like this very white one! @_SLU #CameraTrapTuesday #Scandcam pic.twitter.com/RTd86OPd6m
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) June 11, 2019
He said that while some cameras only take a few photos a month, the camera in Lainio was taking hundreds a day.
"It was part of the range where the reindeer were feeding in the summer, so they were often walking through," he said. "I couldn't tell you how rare they are, but we haven't had that many white reindeers on the camera."
The cameras are fitted with infra-red movement sensors and take ten pictures in quick succession if an animal passes. If there is still an animal there after the pictures have been taken, the cameras then take a further ten pictures.
Here you can see a lynx investigating a trap to see what it was.
Last year a curious cat visited one of my camera traps. I placed it on a small trail halfway down a cliff as months of staring at tracking data told me that that was what lynx select for. It worked as this was the only animal passing in three months time! #CameraTrapTuesday @_SLU pic.twitter.com/GjNT01BR4d
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) June 4, 2019
...here is a curious elk.
Slowly but steadily everything is waking up in northern Sweden. The moose are migrating towards their summer range encountering some cameras on the way. #CameraTrapTuesday @_SLU #Scandcam pic.twitter.com/WQeMECVIr7
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) May 7, 2019
And finally, a red deer investigates.
This #reddeer says hi! It is clear that some animals are curious towards cameras while others shy away. What is less clear is how this influences inference from camera trap data. @_SLU #Scandcam #CameraTrapTuesday pic.twitter.com/6glDSQf8DM
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) April 30, 2019
Hofmeester last December decided to post up a photo taken by the project each Tuesday.
"I saw the images and thought it would be nice to get them out there, so I started Camera Trap Tuesday," he said. "It's just have these images somewhere outside of our computers, where each image just becomes a number on a table."
Last Tuesday, he posted a picture of a hare taken during a project to investigate the impact of forest fires on wildlife, distributing cameras around a tract burnt in 2006.
You wonder what this mountain hare was thinking when it was overlooking its home. The nice thing with the midnight sun in northern Sweden is that we get colour images even in the middle of the night (this picture was taken around 2am). #CameraTrapTuesday #Scandcam @_SLU pic.twitter.com/Py2nM5NkhS
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) June 18, 2019
Here is a badger nosing its way through a patch of new growth on top of forest which was burnt out last year.
The days are becoming very long here in the North, which means that we get colour pictures throughout the day. Here a #badger foraging in a previously burned forest site. #CameraTrapTuesday @_SLU #Scandcam pic.twitter.com/bznerJg5fH
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) May 28, 2019
Here's a hare enjoying the spring.
All the snow is gone and it feels like summer with temperatures +20 degrees Celsius. However, the #mountainhares are still moulting to their summer coat leaving them exposed to predators. #camouflagemismatch #CameraTrapTuesday @_SLU @NINAforskning #Scandcam pic.twitter.com/HuNruGtJZD
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) May 21, 2019
And here is a lynx.
A couple of days ago we went down a very steep hill towards a wildlife trail regularly use by lynx. I wonder if roe deer dare to walk there! #Scandcam studying predator-prey interactions in Hedmark @NINAforskning @_SLU @gaupejohn #CameraTrapTuesday pic.twitter.com/ToR9tQKqO1
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) March 12, 2019
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Last year, I was running a camera trapping project up in Norrbotten. One of the sites close to Lainio was frequented a lot by #reindeer. This is the perfect time to see small calves like this very white one! @_SLU #CameraTrapTuesday #Scandcam pic.twitter.com/RTd86OPd6m
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) June 11, 2019
Last year a curious cat visited one of my camera traps. I placed it on a small trail halfway down a cliff as months of staring at tracking data told me that that was what lynx select for. It worked as this was the only animal passing in three months time! #CameraTrapTuesday @_SLU pic.twitter.com/GjNT01BR4d
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) June 4, 2019
Slowly but steadily everything is waking up in northern Sweden. The moose are migrating towards their summer range encountering some cameras on the way. #CameraTrapTuesday @_SLU #Scandcam pic.twitter.com/WQeMECVIr7
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) May 7, 2019
And finally, a red deer investigates.
This #reddeer says hi! It is clear that some animals are curious towards cameras while others shy away. What is less clear is how this influences inference from camera trap data. @_SLU #Scandcam #CameraTrapTuesday pic.twitter.com/6glDSQf8DM
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) April 30, 2019
You wonder what this mountain hare was thinking when it was overlooking its home. The nice thing with the midnight sun in northern Sweden is that we get colour images even in the middle of the night (this picture was taken around 2am). #CameraTrapTuesday #Scandcam @_SLU pic.twitter.com/Py2nM5NkhS
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) June 18, 2019
Here is a badger nosing its way through a patch of new growth on top of forest which was burnt out last year.
The days are becoming very long here in the North, which means that we get colour pictures throughout the day. Here a #badger foraging in a previously burned forest site. #CameraTrapTuesday @_SLU #Scandcam pic.twitter.com/bznerJg5fH
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) May 28, 2019
Here's a hare enjoying the spring.
All the snow is gone and it feels like summer with temperatures +20 degrees Celsius. However, the #mountainhares are still moulting to their summer coat leaving them exposed to predators. #camouflagemismatch #CameraTrapTuesday @_SLU @NINAforskning #Scandcam pic.twitter.com/HuNruGtJZD
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) May 21, 2019
And here is a lynx.
A couple of days ago we went down a very steep hill towards a wildlife trail regularly use by lynx. I wonder if roe deer dare to walk there! #Scandcam studying predator-prey interactions in Hedmark @NINAforskning @_SLU @gaupejohn #CameraTrapTuesday pic.twitter.com/ToR9tQKqO1
— Tim R Hofmeester? (@TimHofmeester) March 12, 2019
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