Camera traps and guard observations as an alternative to researcher observation for studying anthropogenic foraging

Walton, B.J.; Findlay., L.J.; Hill, R.A.

Abstract

Foraging by wildlife on anthropogenic foods can have negative impacts on both hu-mans and wildlife. Addressing this issue requires reliable data on the patterns of an-thropogenic foraging by wild animals, but while direct observation by researchers can be highly accurate, this method is also costly and labor-intensive, making it impractical in the long-term or over large spatial areas. Camera traps and observations by guards employed to deter animals from fields could be efficient alternative methods of data collection for understanding patterns of foraging by wildlife in crop fields. Here, we investigated how data on crop-foraging by chacma baboons and vervet monkeys col-lected by camera traps and crop guards predicted data collected by researchers, on a commercial farm in South Africa. We found that data from camera traps and field guard observations predicted crop loss and the frequency of crop-foraging events from researcher observations for crop-foraging by baboons and to a lesser extent for vervets. The effectiveness of cameras at capturing crop-foraging events was depend-ent on their position on the field edge. We believe that these alternatives to direct observation by researchers represent an efficient and low-cost method for long-term and large-scale monitoring of foraging by wildlife on crops.

Citation

Walton, B., Findlay., L., & Hill, R. (2022). Camera traps and guard observations as an alternative to researcher observation for studying anthropogenic foraging. Ecology and Evolution, 12(4), Article e8808. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8808

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 21, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Apr 13, 2022
• Publication Date: Apr 13, 2022
• Deposit Date: Apr 9, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 14, 2022
• Journal: Ecology and Evolution
• Electronic ISSN: 2045-7758
• Publisher: Wiley Open Access
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 4
• Article Number: e8808
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8808
• Keywords: Chlorocebus, crop foraging, crop-raiding, human–wildlife conflict, human–wildlife interactions, Papio
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1209011