You always get a rush seeing what footage a camera trap captures! Camera traps are often used by conservationists and scientists to track animals and get a glimpse of animal behaviour in remote locations. Recreationally, Peace Parks staff living in the bush use them to see what their wildlife neighbours are up to when they’re not around!
Peace Parks Project Manager at Limpopo National Park, Samuel Davidson-Phillips, noticed some animal scat outside the park’s headquarters. Unsure whether it belonged to a young lion or a leopard, Samuel set up his personal camera trap close to the scat to see which big cat it belonged to. While he didn’t manage to catch footage of the elusive big cat roaming around the camp, he did capture footage of elephants and a female Nyala with a lamb.
Limpopo National Park (where Samuel works), together with Banhine and Zinave national parks, is one of three Mozambican national parks that are part of a larger landscape and link various river systems that ensure ecological connectivity between these core conservation areas. Peace Parks Foundation assists in the planning, development, and implementation of this ecological connectivity and also facilitates and funds the translocation of animals from Kruger National Park and other thriving protected areas to these parks in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area that have been left devoid of wildlife following years of war and hunting.
In 2020, Peace Parks’ Ernst Beyleveld, Law Enforcement Operations Manager at Banhine National Park, effectively used camera traps to get a clearer picture of the wildlife status in the reserve. He deployed them strategically at various water holes and game paths, and among the thousands of photos, he made some remarkable discoveries. He captured a leopard sighting, the first of this species to be photographed in Banhine after more than two decades. He also photographed a brown hyena at a site significantly further east than its typically expected range.
Whether for recreation or important conservation work, camera traps are both riveting and insightful. Have you ever used a camera trap? Share your most exciting sightings with us in the comments below, and subscribe to the PeaceParks.TV newsletter so that you don’t miss more captivating camera trap footage.
