Five Year Summary of Wildlife Camera Trap Monitoring across Three Parks: A Systematic Approach to Monitoring Wildlife.

摘要

The Southeast Arizona (SEAZ) group, comprised of Chiricahua National Monument, Coronado National Memorial, and Fort Bowie National Historic Site, has been using wildlife camera traps intermittently for the past two decades to monitor wildlife at each of the parks. This report focuses on efforts undertaken by park staff since 2009 to create a long term monitoring program using wildlife camera traps placed at static locations at all three parks. Cameras were routinely checked every 2-3 months, providing continuous data on wildlife for about 5 years. Camera trap data provides staff with information as simple as species presence/absence statistics for each of the parks, as well as more complex information about different species’ behavioral patterns and similarities between camera locations. Camera traps at static locations in the 3 park units detected 18 species at Chiricahua, 17 species at Coronado, and 17 species at Fort Bowie. We did not detect a few species that have been confirmed in the past that could be photographed by camera traps, including 3 at Chiricahua, 4 at Coronado, and 5 at Fort Bowie. It is not certain if these species are now extirpated from the park units, or could be found with additional effort. We found that daily activity of white-tailed deer is different at Fort Bowie, the only site where it co-occurs with mule deer, than at the other two sites.