Comparing CWW deer with WWW deer
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escholzia
OK, so the Wisconsin pics are taken in actual wilderness, not city parks, but it's fascinating to see the difference in deer behavior between the data sets. Chicago deer are quite serene by comparison with the jumpy "head-up", wide-eyed, ears back position in so many of the WWW pics. Having actual predators (bears, cougars), not to mention hunters, sure makes a difference!
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ForestPreserve
moderator
Had me there for a minute, but I see the Wisconsin Wildlife Watch is another zooniverse project. Yes, the deer hereabouts are pretty calm, they'll sometimes make a big show of running away, but you can often get within feet of them with little reaction.
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escholzia
Yes, if it has seemed a bit slow around CWW the past few days, it's because some regulars have been lured away to wilder camera traps with real bears and cougars. However, they don't have an infinite supply of pics, so we'll be back....
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ForestPreserve
moderator
Seems like maybe they have an infinite supply of deer....
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escholzia
They sure do. Maybe Chicago can send them some coywolves.
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yshish
in response to escholzia's comment.
Haha 😃
I think it is just a bad season in general. Lately, there are less volunteers contributing to the classification across all the projects I focus on. Everyone seems to be busy in the offline world after the Christmas holiday.. but it should get back to normal soon.)
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WillowSkye
Just came from WWW and they've run out of deer 😦 All pictures have been classified. I never got to see the elusive Sasquatch ...
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abloss
Hey gang,
I'm down along the Rio Grande River and my little iPad isn't good for classifying. Please don't run out of photos yet like WWW!
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gardenmaeve
Plenty of us are still around. 😃
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escholzia
I doubt CWW will run out of pics any time soon. For one thing, with 69% "nothing here", there's thousands of identical shots of grass blades to classify - woo hoo! I wonder how WWW got such a clean set of pics - prescreened?
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gardenmaeve
You'd have to ask the researchers on WWW. 😃 I do not think the data set was prescreened, though.
Those cameras for the initial trial are set on so-called animal highways. There are multiple cameras set in each site (my conclusion from official commentary) and they respond to both movement and change in heat (such as a deer passing by.) Because they are in a very wide range of habitats and areas of the state, they are working with a much larger pool of possible camera captures. Have a look at the blog to gain a sense of the size of the project: WWW Blog
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ForestPreserve
moderator
I see WWW uses Reconyx "PC800 Hyperfire Pro" professional-series cameras. Not sure about the CWW camera models, but we did see images tagged as Bushnell at one point. I suspect that putting $500+ cameras out in the greater Chicagoland metropolitan area would be a Bad Idea.
Interesting comparison of many trailcams at: http://www.trailcampro.com/trailcamerashootout.aspx, which has a Bushnell camera ranked #1. The Bushnell camera had the most successful captures, at the expense of the most empty pictures. This Bushnell retails for under $200. The comparison did not include the Reconyx PC800.
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gardenmaeve
"...I suspect that putting $500+ cameras out in the greater Chicagoland..."
Yep.
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mason_UWI
scientist
Indeed! We do not use the Reconyx cameras due to the price, we use bushnell trophy cam's, which we can get with a metal security case for around $200. When you need to have >130 camera traps, it adds up pretty quick, and if one of them breaks, is vandalized, or gets stolen it is not as expensive to replace.
Mason
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