Snapshot USA

Snapshot USA’s goal is to facilitate the collaboration of cooperators to contribute to a national database of public wildlife data. Once compiled, our first objective is to examine nationwide trends in mammal community assembly rules associated with natural environmental and anthropogenic filters. We hope to grow the participation in order to monitor these trends over time and will address more species-specific and targeted questions in the future.

In 2019 over 100 collaborators across all 50 states collected more than 100,000 detections of 82 mammal species

Want to help? Registration for this year's project has closed, please check back later!

From September to October 2020, collaborators will deploy cameras and adhere to the following protocol, each project collecting 400 camera nights of effort:

1) Each collaborator selects one combination of setting (Urban, Suburban, Rural, Wild, Other) and habitat (Forest, Grassland, Desert, Alpine, Beach, Anthropogenic, Other) to focus on when deploying camera traps.

2) Between 7 and 40 camera traps will be deployed across 10 to 40 locations matching the selected setting-habitat combination. The location, start date, end date, and camera make and model for each deployment must be recorded.

Approved cameras are Browning (Strike Force Elite HD, 2017 Strike Force HD Pro, or camera of equal or greater quality), Bushnell (Trophy Cam HD, Essential, Aggressor, or camera of equal or greater quality), Moultrie (M-999I, M-1100i, or camera of equal or greater quality), Primos (Proof Cam 02, Proof Cam 03, or camera of equal or greater quality), Reconyx, (all models), Spypoint (Solar, Force 10, Force 11D, Force GM, or camera of equal or greater quality), and Stealth Cam (G45NP Pro, G42NG, or camera of equal or greater quality).

3) Cameras should be placed so that they are 50 cm off the ground and with regular orientation.

4) The deployed cameras must be at least 200 meters away from other cameras (but no farther than 5 kilometers).

5) No food bait or scent lure will be used.

6) While cameras can be placed on trails or logging roads, this must be indicated by the collaborator.

7) Once field work is complete, the collaborator will upload images and metadata to eMammal. Our intent is to have all data uploaded by December 1st and a final report to participants shortly after that time. We encourage collaborators to identify their favorite pictures, so that we can highlight these in this collection.

All eMammal fees (up to 500 camera nights) will be waived for participants. If participants want to contribute more data to eMammal, they can establish a project under standard eMammal rules.

Data accessibility and co-authorship: Data accessibility and co-authorship: there will be no embargo on any data contributed to project outside of usual eMammal restrictions on endangered species. Any scientific paper produced by CO-PIs, or any other co-participants, would offer authorship to all contributors during the manuscript preparation phase.