Camera traps

Paparazzi in the Woods
Hidden surveillance cameras are making the wilderness less wild.

By Etienne Benson. Posted Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008, at 4:17 PM ET in Slate Magazine.

"Next time you go for a hike, keep an eye out for the hidden cameras. The first sign that you're under surveillance might be a plastic or metal case, about the size of a hefty hardcover book, strapped to a tree and painted to blend into the bark. If you're listening carefully, you might even hear the click of the shutter or the whirr of the film advancing.

The cameras are not meant for you, and you'll probably have to get off the trail—at least, off human trails—to find them. They are designed to capture images of wild animals, and in recent years their use by hunters and wildlife biologists has been increasing exponentially. According to one study, there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of scientific papers involving data from camera traps every year for the past decade; at any given time, there may be about 10,000 deployed in research projects. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Exact figures are hard to come by, but industry sources say that as many as 300,000 are sold every year, mostly to hunters.

In fact, camera traps are so useful for science, fund-raising, and conservation that few researchers or conservationists have paused to consider the unintended side effects of this massive deployment. The cameras may be hurting the animals they're used to study—and they may be affecting humans, too.

Related in Slate
Juliet Lapidos explained how they use camera traps to count tigers, and Brendan I. Koerner explained how to count right whales. Ed Finn assessed the best way to raise and train a tiger. C. Josh Donlan argued that we should let elephants, cheetahs, and lions out of captivity to run free in North America."

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