Citizen Science - Help Us Monitor Our Wildlife
Have you ever wanted to get an inside view into the wildlife on a Scottish Highland estate? We are excited to invite you to get involved in the Bunloit Rewilding project by helping us to identify the species that call Bunloit home.
After a year of consulting, we are finally beginning our baseline surveying on the estate. Over the next few months, we will be collating crucial data by conducting a broad spectrum of carbon and biodiversity surveys, each of which will be outlined in a new research hub on the website – coming soon. These will involve classic forms of data collection such as flora and fauna surveys, as well as new and innovative technologies including Satellite analysis, GIS spatial mapping and potentially LIDAR 3D modelling.
With Bunloit hosting a wide variety of habitat types in a relatively small area of land, the data will be crucial in helping to shape our conservation and rewilding efforts moving forward.
To kick things off, we will be deploying camera traps across the land to monitor the larger mammals that inhabit Bunloit. This will be guided by the previous 6 months of small-scale camera trapping that our team has been managing. The footage from these placements will help to determine the locations for the official summer work that will begin at the end of May.
We have uploaded some of our early footage from key hotspots on the estate to MammalWeb*, a citizen science platform that collates recorded species data and enables citizen scientists to get involved by recording the species they see on the uploaded footage. This analysis will inform us on the distribution and abundance of wild mammals, as well as the factors affecting them. All you have to do is sit back, watch the charismatic creatures and label the species that you see.
This set of data is acting as our test run for the ‘official’ footage and images that will be uploaded to this site throughout the summer, from our collaboration with NatureSpy (keep an eye out for more information on this and other research updates coming soon). Our team will be deploying 15 cameras across the land, building up a picture of our mammal diversity across various land types. You can expect to see Wild Boar, Red Squirrels, Badgers, Pine Martens and so much more!
If you’re interested in nature, science, research, or simply want a nice break from work, please do get involved and help us work towards our rewilding goals.
*If you have your own camera trap, you can also contribute data to MammalWeb-Britain or even set up your own project! Head to their site or get in touch with their team at info@mammalweb.org.
Tierney Lloyd