eMammal – Balancing rigorous large scale citizen science with participant learning

Citizen science initiatives try to balance scientific data collection with education, with varying degrees of success. eMammal is a large-scale citizen science program that partners with volunteers to place wildlife cameras... [ view full abstract ]

Citizen science initiatives try to balance scientific data collection with education, with varying degrees of success. eMammal is a large-scale citizen science program that partners with volunteers to place wildlife cameras and collect photographs of mammals with associated meta-data. The project is also engaged in informal and formal education of both volunteers and the general public. Volunteers were trained to set wildlife cameras and used custom software to identify wildlife photos and upload data remotely. All volunteer identifications were reviewed and validated/corrected by experts before storage in a Smithsonian digital repository. Over 500 volunteers sampled 2300 sites across 6 states in the first 2 years of the project. Only 7% of volunteer cameras were rejected for poor setup, and individual volunteers improved camera setup over time. Volunteers accurately identified 15 of 20 common species 90% of the time, although there was no improvement in species identification during the project. We assessed volunteer wildlife conservation attitudes and wildlife knowledge before and after participation with validated survey instruments. We found that attitudes toward wildlife and importance of protected areas were already high and did not change (n=48, Wilcoxon rank test, p=0.67, 0.71), but knowledge of wildlife natural history slightly, but significantly, increased (n=63, paired t, p=0.01). Volunteer enthusiasm was high and 98% of surveyed volunteers wanted to return (n=126). eMammal has created a system for collecting high quality data with volunteers by using photographic data vouchers and expert review, but both outreach and education efforts have potential to grow. While we are currently reaching groups already interested in conservation, current classroom programs have higher outreach and education potential with urban and underserved youth populations. eMammal is poised to be a central platform for camera trapping projects worldwide and shows potential for balancing the collection of quality scientific data with education.