Many of our research methods, such as sightings and camera-trapping, generate very large quantities of data, and it is hard for our small field team to analyse it all, especially given limited power and other resources at the field camp. Therefore, we are developing citizen science portals, which allows interested people around the world to actively get involved with our research and help us achieve our goals.

The main citizen science portal is CarnivoreCam, where people can identify whether there is a wild animal captured in our camera-trapping images, and if so, which species it is and how many individuals there are. This provides invaluable data for the project on the occurrence and distribution of species, which informs conservation planning, and it also helps us analyse the data for our community camera-trapping programme.

CarnivoreCam does not only have images from the Ruaha Carnivore Project – it was developed as part of the Pride Lion Conservation Alliance, which we co-founded. It therefore helps researchers from several important lion conservation projects, such as the Niassa Lion Project, and Lion Landscapes. This is a fun and important way of getting involved with active carnivore research, so please take some time to identify wildlife on CarnivoreCam today!