Snapshot Camdeboo

The aim of the Snapshot Safari – South Africa project is to provide extensive mammal occupancy and distribution data from conservation priority areas in South Africa as well as to develop and test survey methodology and conservation effectiveness assessments. This study will investigate how the structure and abundance of mammal communities, influenced by natural as well as anthropogenic processes, affects mammal species diversity and assemblages.

In response to the urgent need for more accurate assessment of mammal occupancy and populations we are launching a new research project called Snapshot Safari – South Africa as an expansion of Snapshot Serengeti, where citizen scientists worldwide helped to classify millions of photographs collected by a grid of camera traps in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.

Snapshot Safari – South Africa will include an unprecedented network of camera trap grids in dozens of protected areas and protected area expansion areas in South Africa to provide continuous monitoring of population sizes and trends of all the larger (>10 kg) mammal species at each site. Some of the participating study areas are managed as conservancies and stewardship areas, some are privately owned, some are state-run, and others are under communal tenure. With the help of accurate camera trap censuses, and innovative mapping approaches we will be able to identify which sites are being managed successfully - and hence which conservation strategies should be incorporated into a toolbox for effective wildlife management.

Snapshot Safari – South Africa will enable us to closely examine questions of species occupancy, species coexistence, competition, trophic interactions, the effect of change, and other ecological relationships across a variety of habitat types, community compositions, and management strategies. It will further provide a solid baseline for future monitoring of change as well as anthropogenic impacts. The results will contribute to the development and refinement of important methods to conserve species and ecosystems.

In addition to methods for calculating population size, camera traps also allow for a greater understanding of key demographic parameters. For example, using images of young animals, we gain information about breeding seasonality and duration, % females with young, and mortality of young. All of these are key parameters critical for both conservation management and conservation planning. Furthermore, the camera trap data are an important resource for understanding distribution and temporal occupancy for different mammal communities. Our data will document occupancy across seasons and years, allowing us to gain an understanding of seasonal occupancy.

The full data set that will be developed will be an important resource for future researchers and managers to study or gain information on environmental change, species dynamics, biodiversity patterns, species conservation status, conservation management, biodiversity planning and protected area monitoring.