Audubon Staff Contributes 164,307 Wildlife Camera Photos to “SnapshotUSA” Program

Audubon workers at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary have been utilizing distant cameras geared up with movement sensors to review the totally different species and numbers of mammals on Sanctuary land for over a decade. This previous fall, in addition they performed a particular examine over two months as a part of the SnapshotUSA program, a large-scale initiative began in 2019 to higher perceive mammal inhabitants numbers nationwide. 

Overview of SnapshotUSA

SnapshotUSA, a program supported by the Smithsonian Establishment and the North Carolina Museum of Pure Sciences, collects information nationwide yearly in September and October. By means of this system, they’ve made greater than 1 million mammal observations and 67,000 hen observations up to now.

The 2025 SnapshotUSA effort included submissions by businesses, organizations, and schools and universities representing quite a lot of habitats, with 3,320 cameras deployed throughout 49 states and Puerto Rico. With cameras positioned all through the wetland habitats, the Sanctuary is within the “Subtropical Division” and is one in every of greater than a dozen areas in Florida. Whereas the Sanctuary’s location is taken into account “wild,” different SnapshotUSA individuals positioned cameras in rural, suburban, and concrete environments.

Findings From the Sanctuary’s Cameras 

Following SnapshotUSA tips, Audubon workers deployed cameras in 20 areas at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary at first of September. As soon as all the photographs are retrieved from the cameras, they’re uploaded to a machine studying instrument that identifies and catalogs pictures and information. Whereas Audubon analysis workers and volunteers affirm the identification for each picture, the instrument saves a whole bunch of hours of overview by filtering out repetitive pictures, blanks, and those who present solely wind-blown vegetation. 

Of the 164,307 pictures collected by the Sanctuary’s cameras in the course of the 2025 examine, the net instrument recognized 14 species of mammals, with a whole bunch of pictures of white-tailed deer, bobcats, and wild boars, which have been essentially the most quite a few mammals. It additionally detected 18 sequences of Florida black bears and seven sequences of Florida panthers. However the cameras additionally captured pictures of many different animals, together with birds and even bugs.

“This type of examine encourages us to consider the ecosystem as a complete,” says Audubon Analysis Affiliate Darienne Purtz, who was answerable for overseeing the information assortment for this undertaking. “Because the cameras are on the market on a regular basis, they seize behaviors, interactions, and species that go unnoticed when we’re not within the area,” she provides.

As a part of the undertaking, the staff made an thrilling remark. A photograph of a King Rail captured the hen carrying plant materials. Rails are very secretive marsh birds, and since this was throughout nesting season, it might be an indication that they’re nesting in or close to the Sanctuary.

The place Do We Go from Right here

SnapshotUSA aggregates all undertaking information on-line, accessible by all individuals and the general public. The hassle supplied a wonderful alternative for Audubon to collaborate and contribute information to large-scale mammal research. It might additionally presumably pique the curiosity of researchers learning mammal biodiversity or conduct that would advance conservation efforts at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary sooner or later. Rigorous science performs a pivotal position in documenting the results of local weather change and biodiversity loss on birds, landscapes, and other people—and in devising revolutionary, inclusive options to mitigate and counter their results.