The $100 camera that found a ghost
Plus, read to the end for a cockatoo's take on fusion cuisine
In 2019, a $100 camera strapped to a tree in Vietnam's coastal forests captured something seemingly impossible — a mouse-deer (the world's smallest hoofed mammals, not closely related to either mice OR deer) with silver-streaked flanks that scientists thought had vanished forever. The silver-backed chevrotain, last seen in 1990, had been considered lost to science for nearly three decades. All it took to prove everyone wrong was a weatherproof camera with a motion sensor, some batteries, and patience.
I'm thinking about that chevrotain discovery as I sit here at Denver International, where my suitcase is half-filled with similar camera traps bound for Mongolia (the other half is thermal underwear and a sleeping bag rated to -30 degrees Fahrenheit). These intentionally unassuming devices, which look a bit like doorbell cameras, have revolutionized how scientists study and protect wildlife over the past few decades.
Camera traps are essentially weatherproof cameras with motion sensors that can be left in the field for weeks or months at a time. When an animal walks past, the sensor triggers and — snap! — we get a glimpse into a world that’d be otherwise impossible for us to see. Whether it's documenting rare species, studying animal behavior, or gathering evidence of poaching, these indefatigable electronic sentinels have become one of conservation's most valuable tools.
The technology has come a long way since the first automated wildlife cameras in the late 1980s, which used film and infrared beams. Those early systems required researchers to trek out into the field just to change the film roll. It was almost sheer luck to capture anything at all. Today's digital camera traps can store thousands of images, run for months on a single set of batteries, and some can even transmit photos directly to researchers' phones.
But what makes camera traps indispensable is their ability to observe without disturbing. Unlike traditional wildlife surveys that require human presence (which can alter animal behavior), camera traps are silent witnesses. They work 24/7, in all weather conditions, capturing both daytime visitors and nocturnal wanderers. They're particularly valuable for studying elusive species like the manul — which is exactly why I'm hauling these units across the world.
The impact of camera traps on conservation has been profound. In Tasmania, a network of over 600 cameras has collected more than 750,000 images, helping researchers track both endangered species and invasive predators. And in Mongolia, where I'm headed, camera traps are helping scientists understand how animals like the manul are adapting to rapidly changing environments.
The grunt work I’m volunteering to do as part of Vadim Kirilyuk’s research is pretty standard in camera trap studies: we'll be checking and setting up cameras in areas where he thinks manuls might pass by, usually along ridgelines or near rock outcrops where they make their dens. Each camera creates an invisible detection zone — when a manul (or any other animal) passes through, it triggers the camera. Over time, these photos help scientists understand population sizes, behavior patterns, and how different species interact.
Modern camera traps generate massive amounts of data — one estimate suggests a single robust camera trap study can produce over 1 million images. Thankfully, AI is helping here now too. Algorithms can sort through thousands of photos, identifying different species and even individual animals, turning what used to be months of manual work into an automated process.
I'll be sharing more about the camera trap work in Mongolia over the next few weeks. But for now, I need to board my flight to Seoul. More on Friday if the jet lag doesn’t win.
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I try to talk a lot about good human-wildlife interactions. Here’s a not-so-good-one: A nationwide power outage in Sri Lanka on Sunday was caused by a monkey that wandered into a power station near Colombo. The incident left 22 million people without electricity and sparked both infrastructure concerns and, naturally, plenty of memes referencing Hanuman, the monkey god who according to a Hindu epic once set the entire island ablaze. While power has been restored, engineers are using the incident to highlight the fragility of Sri Lanka's aging power grid.
Scientists have discovered that cockatoos are just like us in one weird way — they'll dip bland food into tastier sauces to zest up their meals. Research found these clever birds have a particular fondness for dunking pasta into blueberry soy yogurt (a combination that one brave scientist tried himself and... does not recommend). While Japanese macaques were previously known to dip potatoes in salt water, this is only the second documented case of wild animals deliberately flavoring their food. The cockatoos were quite thorough about it too, rolling and pressing their pasta in the yogurt to ensure maximum coverage — though thankfully, none have figured out how to post their culinary experiments to Instagram. (Although I’d look forward to the cross-species Chef Reactions collaboration.)
