Monday, June 9, 2025
LBNN
  • Business
  • Markets
  • Politics
  • Crypto
  • Finance
  • Energy
  • Technology
  • Taxes
  • Creator Economy
  • Wealth Management
  • Documentaries
No Result
View All Result
LBNN

Audio: What do we really learn from trail cams?

Simon Osuji by Simon Osuji
September 27, 2024
in Investigative journalism
0
Audio: What do we really learn from trail cams?
0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Note: This story is intended to be listened to. Text associated below is simply a transcript of the audio.

I’m fascinated by wildlife trail cameras. They haven’t been around that long: They started becoming popular in the 1980s. Then, in the ’90s, they still used 35 mm film. These days, many trail-cam aficionados own three to five cameras, and they nerd out on the footage remotely, from their phones.

A few months ago, I found myself in front of a bulky trail cam during a hike on a public trail. I was being watched.

Ruxandra: “I’m at Picture Canyon Trail in Flagstaff, Arizona, and just came upon a trail camera that’s rigged around the trunk of a tree, and it has a little sign next to it that says, ‘All images of humans will be deleted except for violations that damage city of Flagstaff property. The camera cannot be used without the code lock passcode.‘ Yada yada yada. …”

Clearly, people had been messing around with the trail cam, photobombing from nature for whoever might review the footage. The sign made me laugh. But it also made me wonder: What is it about us humans needing to document everything? What is it that we’re looking for when we look at animals? Is it our own reflection?

Back in the 1980s, in the time of the first-generation trail cams, British writer John Berger published an essay titled, “Why Look at Animals?”

“What were the secrets of the animal’s likeness with, and unlikeness from man?” he wrote, referring to the very first human civilizations. “In one sense the whole of anthropology, concerned with the passage from nature to culture, is an answer to that question.”

And, in a way, I say, our love of trail cams and selfies is showing us a way from culture back to nature. In other words, our desire to document is bringing us closer to nature and to animals. That urge is teaching us.

John Berger: “It appears the animals, Beverly, are emigrating. Their America, the constellations in the sky: lizard, lion, great bear, lamb, bull, crow, hare. …”

That’s John Berger again, but he’s reading from his poem, “They Are the Last.”

A few years ago, I spent a Sunday morning trying to look at animals myself. I went on a hike with wildlife biologist Miguel Ordeñana in Griffith Park, Los Angeles’ largest park, which is more than 4,000 acres big.

Trail camera image of P-22 in Los Angeles, California’s Griffith Park. Credit: Courtesy of Miguel Ordeñana

Ruxandra: “So, what’s the process of deciding where exactly those trail cameras are, and do you move them around?”

Back then, Miguel kept tabs on P-22, Los Angeles’ most famous mountain lion. In fact, it was Miguel who first spotted him, thanks to one of his trusty trail cameras.

Miguel: “I’ve been monitoring P-22 since he arrived in the park, and so I know basically his favorite hangouts and spots to be. So, I put my cameras in places that, yes, are good practice for trying to track any carnivore, which are trails, funnels, canyons, intersections in trails, places where you see scat tracks or these other signs called scrapes, where they kick with their back feet like this — you might see some up there. And it’s really distinct, and then they pee right there. You’ll see like their actual digit marks. Bobcats do that, mountain lions do that.”

Ruxandra: “Sounds just like domestic cats.”

Miguel: “Yeah.”

We never did see those scrapes. We hiked up the same funnels and canyons that P-22 probably loved, too. He must have been watching us.

About a year after the hike with Miguel, I learned that P-22 had to be euthanized — he’d been hit by a car and was suffering from kidney failure and heart disease. He was an old cat.

This past May, Miguel shared a video of himself on social media.

Miguel: “So, there’s some exciting news. There’s a new mountain lion that has been documented in Griffith Park. … For now, we’re calling him a ‘he,’ because it seems to look like a male mountain lion, but we don’t know for sure. And we don’t know where this mountain lion came from. …”

In the video, you can see the mountain lion standing on a boulder, his eyes red from the flash of the camera. According to Miguel, he hung out in Griffith Park for a couple weeks, but before they could find out any more about this mountain lion, he disappeared.

There were no scrapes. No one reported seeing him around the Santa Monica Mountains like they had P-22. Maybe the image of this mountain lion wasn’t going to be teaching us much — other than the fact that wildlife is, well, wild. It is elusive. It is watching. As John Berger also said: Animals are the objects of our ever-extending knowledge. Yet the more we know, the farther away they are.

“Encounters” is a serial column exploring life and landscape during the climate crisis.

Spread the word. News organizations can pick-up quality news, essays and feature stories for free.

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Related posts

What defunding public media would mean for the West

What defunding public media would mean for the West

June 6, 2025
Corporate Pride Is Dying. Good.

Corporate Pride Is Dying. Good.

June 5, 2025

Source link

Previous Post

Top 10 African country with the highest foreign exchange and gold reserves

Next Post

Haitian leader supports creating UN-led mission to quell country’s gang violence

Next Post
Haitian leader supports creating UN-led mission to quell country’s gang violence

Haitian leader supports creating UN-led mission to quell country’s gang violence

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECOMMENDED NEWS

America Is at Risk of a Market Meltdown, Warns CBO

America Is at Risk of a Market Meltdown, Warns CBO

1 year ago
ICIEC and ITFC sign documentary credit insurance policy to boost trade facilitation for the benefit of member countries

ICIEC and ITFC sign documentary credit insurance policy to boost trade facilitation for the benefit of member countries

3 months ago
How Can You Get Hired with No Experience?

How Can You Get Hired with No Experience?

2 years ago
Questions and Answers about the charges against Mr. Joseph Kony at the International Criminal Court

Questions and Answers about the charges against Mr. Joseph Kony at the International Criminal Court

1 year ago

POPULAR NEWS

  • Ghana to build three oil refineries, five petrochemical plants in energy sector overhaul

    Ghana to build three oil refineries, five petrochemical plants in energy sector overhaul

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • When Will SHIB Reach $1? Here’s What ChatGPT Says

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Matthew Slater, son of Jackson State great, happy to see HBCUs back at the forefront

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Dolly Varden Focuses on Adding Ounces the Remainder of 2023

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • US Dollar Might Fall To 96-97 Range in March 2024

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 LBNN - All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Markets
  • Crypto
  • Economics
    • Manufacturing
    • Real Estate
    • Infrastructure
  • Finance
  • Energy
  • Creator Economy
  • Wealth Management
  • Taxes
  • Telecoms
  • Military & Defense
  • Careers
  • Technology
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Investigative journalism
  • Art & Culture
  • Documentaries
  • Quizzes
    • Enneagram quiz
  • Newsletters
    • LBNN Newsletter
    • Divergent Capitalist

© 2023 LBNN - All rights reserved.