What is Snapshot Wisconsin?
Snapshot Wisconsin is a community science project where the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (Wisconsin DNR) partners with volunteers to monitor wildlife using a statewide network of trail cameras. Volunteers host trail cameras, which are triggered by heat and movement, capturing pictures of passing animals. Located in the Great Lakes region of the United States, Wisconsin hosts a variety of habitats from coniferous forest to prairies. Wisconsin is home 65 species of native mammals, hundreds of other vertebrate species, and thousands of invertebrates and native plant species.
Snapshot and Zooniverse
Snapshot Wisconsin has collected over 85 million photos since its genesis in 2015. What started as a pilot project in a few Wisconsin counties has now grown to over 2,000 statewide camera hosts. Online, Snapshot Wisconsin has enlisted the help of Zooniverse volunteers to make nearly 9.3 million classifications in the first 49 seasons on Zooniverse.
Snapshot Across the Globe
The first Snapshot Wisconsin Zooniverse season was launched on May 17th, 2016. Since then, Snapshot Wisconsin has continually brought in thousands of classifiers. From China to Mexico, from Russia to Brazil, online volunteers have donated almost 36,000 hours so far. The map below highlights the countries in which Snapshot classifiers call home!
#Supersnaps
One way Snapshot moderators and experts encourage those thousands of hours of engagement is by promoting the use of #supersnaps! Zooniverse volunteers come across some fantastic images while classifying photos. Using the tag #supersnap, volunteers can nominate their favorite photos for consideration as the best photo of the month. Snapshot Wisconsin will also be celebrating on the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Instagram (@wi_dnr) by hosting a tournament to decide among a group of amazing Snapshot trail camera images which one deserves the title of SuperSnap! Vote daily January 22-26 in the @wi_dnr Instagram Story.
Here are a few examples of past #supersnaps:
Get a group involved by hosting a Snap-a-thon!
Take the fun of Zooniverse to an even larger group of participants by hosting a Snap-a-thon! Snapshot Wisconsin Snap-a-thons are friendly competitions where a group of people tag animal photos on our crowdsourcing website, Zooniverse, to gather as many points as possible. Who can participate? Anyone familiar with Wisconsin wildlife and with operating a computer can participate. No need to be a wildlife expert: Zooniverse has a built-in field guide to help with more difficult classifications. You can find Snap-a-thon instructions under the ‘activities’ tab here!
Snapshot Wisconsin Scientific Products
One of Snapshot Wisconsin’s goals is to provide data needed to make wildlife management decisions. Thanks to thousands of online volunteers, the program’s millions of trail camera images are transformed into usable data. This data has been used for wildlife research and wildlife decision support by Wisconsin DNR scientists and interested university students and faculty.
The Snapshot Publication webpage has publications organized by topic, ranging from the temporal and spatial behavior of deer to predator-prey relationships. The valuable information gathered from these research projects helps build our understanding of local wildlife and support wildlife management decisions.
Snapshot Wisconsin Blog
Snapshot Wisconsin has its own project blog at blog.snapshotwisconsin.org where the team shares #supersnaps, project updates, team outreach, scientific findings, ecological tid-bits and more! For more information about the project, please visit our main project page, or get started classifying photos at our Zooniverse crowdsourcing site.
Thank You for 50 Great Seasons
Snapshot Wisconsin would like to thank their camera hosts and Zooniverse volunteers for the tremendous amount of work they do for Wisconsin’s natural resources. 50 Zooniverse seasons has certainly flown by for the team, but it is nonetheless a remarkable success that wouldn’t be possible without the dedication and passion of the project’s Zooniverse volunteers.
Zooniverse 