2.5 million animal selfies reveal that nature is still going strong

[SecularMotion]

Speculation abounds as to the meaning behind the human obsession with taking selfies. But what about animals? They take selfies too, albeit unknowingly and without a stick to aid them. But when a wild animal walks in front of a motion-activated camera, otherwise known as a camera trap, it reveals more than the average selfie.

A recent study compiled some 2.5 million of these “selfies” taken by over 1,000 hidden camera traps scattered throughout global tropics in an effort to better understand animal diversity and behavior. In analyzing photos of 244 species from 15 protected tropical forests over the last 3-8 years, researchers found that species distribution and number had not significantly declined. In an of era rapid human population growth with fewer and fewer havens for wild animals, this general stability was unexpected.

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Dr. Lydia Beaudrot, an ecologist, conservation biologist and lead author of the study, told me over email that they were surprised to find that over the time span studied “protected areas are supporting stable communities of tropical mammals and birds.”

“There was a lot of variability in how individual populations were doing—some were increasing, others were decreasing—but on the whole, there was community level stability,” she said.

http://fusion.net/story/261552/millions-of-animal-selfies-offer-snapshot-of-habitat/