Patience Led Researchers to this New Feat

In recent years, ecologists have been able to confirm the existence of species previously thought to be lost from former parts of their range. For example, in 2020, lowland gorillas were confirmed to persist in central mainland Equatorial Guinea by University of the West of England researchers. This year, Babirusa, a southeast Asian wild pig species, were documented for the first time in 26 years on Buru Island, Indonesia. Collecting this evidence is possible due to the increasing use of remotely triggered cameras, commonly known as camera traps. Camera traps are triggered by motion and take photos of an animal that passes in front of the camera’s detection zone. By deploying cameras in wildlife habitat, we can gather valuable information about the animals that live there and how many may be left. This is especially important in areas subject to intense human pressure, which has increasingly left species under threat. In 2019, our research team deployed 19 camera traps in southern Cameroon in Central Africa. A sighting of an adult leopard was captured by one of our camera traps in the Campo-Ma’an area. This was the first sighting of a leopard in 20 years. Photos showed only one individual, but its presence provided real evidence that leopards still occur in this conservation area. This would make leopards the apex predator in this area.SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION