Assessing efficacy of cellular transmission technology in camera trapping for wildlife research

Camera traps are an important noninvasive tool used by scientists to monitor wildlife efficiently and at reduced costs. New camera trap features improve performance and encourage increased use by researchers and the public. Cellular transmission of image data, which provides users the ability to digitally receive images instead of retrieving or downloading images in the field is a useful new feature. Cellular data transmission has 2 key benefits for wildlife research in that it reduces travel time required for downloading image data and the uncertainty involving storage capacity of SD cards and battery life, and cellular transmission allows for near real-time analysis of images, which could redistribute the time usually devoted to processing a large data set when the memory card is retrieved. Despite potential benefits, cellular transmission technology in camera traps is still new and questions remain about its reliability. Our objective was to determine the efficacy of cellular transmission technology in wildlife research by designing a camera trap study as part of a senior-level class (Wildlife Management Applications and Planning; NREM 4522) project at Oklahoma State University. We used ArcGIS to generate a stratified random sample of trap locations, deploying five cellular transmission camera traps in open grassland and five in closed canopy forest areas from 5 September to 5 October 2021. We monitored the number of transmitted images each day online, and after camera trap retrieval, we compared the number of transmitted images to those stored on the memory card to determine transmission efficiency. Our data indicated the majority of the images taken each day were transmitted successfully; however, transmission efficiency (i.e., number transmitted divided by total number taken by the camera trap) tended to be lower in forested areas (47%) compared to open grassland (86%). Though cellular transmission technology shows promise, the combination of cellular signal, landscape features, and transmitted data quality may limit the effectiveness of cellular transmission technology for near real-time data analysis. Based on our results, we recommend that researchers consider advantages and disadvantages of cellular transmission when designing studies and note that researchers may need to adopt an adaptive approach or conduct pilot testing that includes quantifying the transmission functionality.