Wildlife Biology in Practice, Vol 4, No 1 (2008)

Wildl. Biol. Pract., 2008; 1(4); 1-7;

Open Access Policy
Online ISSN: 1646-2742
doi: 10.2461/wbp.2008.4.1
Copyright © 2008 Parker, Watts, McCleery, Lopez, Silvy, Davis.
Published by: Portuguese Wildlife Society

Creative Commons License This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


The electronic version of this article can be found at:
http://www.socpvs.org/journals/index.php/wbp/article/view/10.2461-wbp.2008.4.1

Digital Versus Film-Based Remote Camera Systems in the Florida Keys


Abstract


Remote-triggered cameras are an important tool in wildlife research and the increasing availability of digital camera technology can potentially provide researchers with additional options and benefits. We compared the performance and cost of a remote digital camera system (passive infrared) with 2 well-established remote film-based camera systems (1 passive, 1 active) in the Lower Florida Keys. During the approximately month-long study, we found that the digital system provided similar performance and potentially decreased cost compared to the film-based systems when monitoring the endangered Florida Key deer (Odocoileus virginianus clavium). Considering the benefits of passive digital camera systems (e.g., large photograph storage capacity, less equipment, easy photograph manipulation), comparable performance by the digital system to film-based systems provides motivation to consider this new and evolving technology in future wildlife research.


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Keywords

active infrared, digital, film, Florida Key deer, Odocoileus virginianus clavium, passive infrared, remote cameras.

Supplementary files

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