Everglades Wildlife Watch documents wildlife across the South Region with the goal of getting information about the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's habitat management and restoration efforts. To accomplish this, volunteers place and monitor cameras on Wildlife Management Areas throughout South Florida, then participants like you analyze photographs from cameras to help identify what kinds of wildlife are present. The information gathered allows the FWC to make well-informed management decisions about Florida’s wildlife!

 

Trail cameras (also known as game cameras, wildlife cameras or camera traps) are our preferred method when documenting wildlife. Trail cameras can be more effective at detecting wildlife at a higher rate than other trapping methods. They are also less intrusive because they allow for multiple areas to be surveyed at the same time without needing to check those areas daily. Trail cameras are relatively cheap, and they require less work for staff than other trapping methods. Finally, they can be used for both short-term and long-term assessments of how many kinds of wildlife are in an area.

 

Each picture taken by the cameras gets thoroughly inspected, and all animals captured are identified to species level if possible. This can result in a tremendous amount of time invested by biologists. As a participant in this Zooniverse project, you can help the FWC by taking over a critical role in this process: the analysis! Through your help, we are able to analyze significantly more photos faster than we ever could on our own. This will give us more robust data and a better understanding of the wildlife using our Wildlife Management Areas!