Review: COVID-19 highlights the importance of camera traps for wildlife conservation research and management

Abstract

COVID-19 has altered many aspects of everyday life. For the scientific community, the pandemic has called upon investigators to continue work in novel ways, curtailing field and lab research. However, this unprecedented situation also offers an opportunity for researchers to optimize and further develop available field methods. Camera traps are one example of a tool used in science to answer questions about wildlife ecology, conservation, and management. Camera traps have long battery lives, lasting more than a year in certain cases, and photo storage capacity, with some models capable of wirelessly transmitting images from the field. This allows researchers to deploy cameras without having to check them for up to a year or more, making them an ideal field research tool during restrictions on in-person research activities such as COVID-19 lockdowns. As technological advances allow cameras to collect increasingly greater numbers of photos and videos, the analysis techniques for large amounts of data are evolving. Here, we describe the most common research questions suitable for camera trap studies and their importance for biodiversity conservation. As COVID-19 continues to affect how people interact with the natural environment, we discuss novel questions for which camera traps can provide insights on. We conclude by summarizing the results of a systematic review of camera trap studies, providing data on target taxa, geographic distribution, publication rate, and publication venues to help researchers planning to use camera traps in response to the current changes in human activity.