Mammal Species Inventory - Namaqua National Park: Report 1 February 2019 to May 2019

SnapshotSafari is a transnational program aiming at providing a greater knowledge about mammal populations accross southern Africa. Thanks to standardized camera traps (CTs) grid, deployed in various locations reflecting a diversity of conservation states (from protected areas to highly transformed areas), SnapshotSafari aims at describing mammal population abundances, diversities and spatial occurrences. The data provided will benefit Research, in fields as broad as Genetics, Ecology or conservation Biology, as well by providing to conservation planning a comprehensive synthesis of which species can be found in their location, with which abundance...etc.

The project is coordinated in South Africa by Nelson by Mandela University’s Wildlife Ecology Lab. The images collected by the CTs (as much as thousands per site) are sent to the United States (University of Minnesota) to be processed via a participative science platform (Zooniverse) and machine learning (a popular IT field that allows automatized recognition of elements in an image, for instance antelopes in a landscape photo).

快照漫游（SnapshotSafari）是一项跨国研究项目，旨在深化人们对南部非洲各地哺乳动物种群的认知。该项目依托标准化红外相机陷阱（camera trap, CT）阵列，布设于涵盖不同保护状态（从严格保护区到高度开发区域）的多样点位中，旨在刻画哺乳动物种群的丰度、多样性与空间分布格局。本数据集所提供的观测数据，将广泛惠及遗传学、生态学、保护生物学等多个研究领域；同时可为保护规划工作提供全面的物种分布与种群丰度综合参考，例如某一区域内存在的物种种类及其种群数量等核心信息。
该项目在南非由纳尔逊·曼德拉大学野生动物生态学实验室负责协调。红外相机陷阱采集的影像（单站点影像数量可达数千张）将被输送至美国明尼苏达大学，通过众包科学平台（Zooniverse）与机器学习（machine learning）技术开展处理工作。其中机器学习是当前热门的信息技术领域，可实现图像内容的自动化识别，例如识别景观照片中的羚羊。