Patrick Jansen, ecologist from Wageningen University, has now installed 70 such cameras in the Hoge Veluwe. “The usefulness of these cameras is that you do not disturb nature and at the same time receive a lot of information about the animals”, Jansen told EditieNL.
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“They help forest rangers to find out where the animal species are hiding. But the most important thing is that they can observe the behavior of the animals undisturbed.” The behavior of the animals can change because of urbanization around nature reserves, and because more recreation is taking place in their habitat.
Leaves
These cameras are housed in a box and a built-in infrared sensor makes them run when an animal passes by. “That ensures that we don’t have to look back hours of footage.” Yet it sometimes goes wrong. “If a leaf falls in front of the camera, it will also walk.”
Shy animals
An active user of the wildlife camera is naturalist René Janssen. Since 2017, he has captured raccoons and wild cats several times in South Limburg. “A raccoon is not often seen, but you come across them regularly with camera traps. I think I captured about 35 of them.”
The wild cat is also such an animal that does not like to look at the proverbial bird. “You hardly ever spot them with the naked eye. To photograph them in a nature reserve is even more difficult. That is why camera traps are very suitable.”
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Shy animals
The raccoon and the wild cat are not the only shy animals we have in the Netherlands. The polecat, pine marten, ermine and the illustrious golden jackal are animals that are almost never seen in real life.
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