FAQs

• Why are there so many deer photos, or so few photos of species x?
• Why is there no "I don't know" button? How should I classify an animal I truly can’t identify?
• How do I count and distinguish adults from young, and what do you mean by "young"?
• Why is there a button for humans?
• What should I do if I get an "Already Seen" banner?
• It’s difficult to tell species apart!
• How do I classify young deer, antlered deer, and deer with antler nubs?
• What should I do if I come across photos of a sick/injured/dying animal?

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Why are there so many deer photos, or so few photos of species x?

This is a great question. One simple answer is that deer are abundant in Iowa and Dubuque County, and you are more likely to encounter abundant critters than less abundant critters. This is a main principle of many wildlife monitoring programs: we expect the likelihood of seeing or catching an animal to be directly proportional to its population size. When working with trail cameras, however, there a few other factors that affect how often certain species are seen:

• Larger animals are more likely to trigger a trail camera than smaller animals. The camera only fires when an object warmer than the background crosses the plane of separate motion-detecting beams. A mouse can trigger a camera, but only if it is close enough to cross multiple motion-detecting beams at once, or walks in exactly the right spot to do so.

• Large animals often heavily use trails to make travel easier, and trail cameras are preferentially placed along wildlife trails.

• Animals that spend more time in motion and use more space are more likely to be photographed. Animals that commute long distances daily to feed or hunt (such as coyotes) may be detected more frequently than animals that move shorter distances.

• Smaller animals are more likely to be overlooked in photos. That's why it is important to scan the photo thoroughly before determining if there's indeed "nothing here".

In Dubuque County, deer and wild turkey are very frequently photographed because both species are abundant, large, mobile, and tend to use paths that people can identify. On the other hand, badgers are infrequently photographed because they are relatively rare, low to the ground, and stealthy.

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Why is there no "I don't know" button? How should I classify an animal I truly can’t identify?

The Snapshot Serengeti blog has a great post about this that we are largely paraphrasing below. We know it is not possible for us to classify all pictures - some photos are poor quality or capture animals at a strange angle or moving quickly. However, please give even the poor quality photos your best shot! And please do a thorough scan of the photo before defaulting to "No Animals Present". Here's why:

It is better to have some idea about the animal in the photo than no data. If you are uncertain and classify a photo incorrectly, it does not ruin the data! In fact, the more disagreement there is regarding a photograph, the longer it stays active for viewers (to a limited point). For example, if the classifications disagree but include fox, coyote and wolf, that tells us the animal is probably a canid of some sort. We learn a lot more than we would if we allowed people to say "I don't know" and be done with it. Furthermore, photos tagged as having nothing in them are quickly deactivated - when that happens we assume there is nothing but vegetation in the photo, so please do spend a little time to look for hard-to-see critters.

When pictures are difficult to classify, we suggest using the classification filters to help narrow the potential range of choices. We've including filters for "looks like" (to filter based on whether the animal looks like a bird, dog, rodent, etc.), body size (small vs. large), and rare vs. common (to get a sense of how likely it is that you're seeing what you think you're seeing). Also check out our field guide (click the tab on the right side of your screen) for more help identifying Dubuque County species.

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Fast moving animals are difficult to identify, but users should still take a guess!

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How do I count and distinguish adults from young, and what do you mean by "young"?

Some animal categories, like bear and deer, ask you to give counts for adults and young separately. Others, like bobcat and crane, ask for just one total count but have a "young present" checkbox. When you classify these, young should be included in the count AND you should select "yes" when asked if young are present. For example, if you see 1 adult bobcat with 2 young kits, the count would be 3 and you would click the "young present" button.

Distinguishing adults vs. young allows us to understand reproduction rates in a given species. We are defining "young" as offspring of the year -- animals less than one year old. For most species, it is very difficult to tell young that are past age one from adults. In fact, most juveniles will be more or less indistinguishable from adults by late autumn, and offspring of solitary animals will typically leave their parents around this time.

Body size is the most obvious way to distinguish adults from their young. Luckily, during spring and early summer, juveniles are often accompanied by an adult so that the size difference can be seen in photos. Keep in mind, however, that the season in which the photo was taken may not correspond to the season in which you are viewing it.

Another way to distinguish young from adults is by their different markings or builds. Examples:

• Deer fawns have spots and are about as long as they are tall. Adult deer do not have spots and are longer than they are tall (rectangular build).
• Turkey young (poults) lack the bare blue heads of adult turkeys.
• Canid pups and bobcat kits typically look ‘blockier’ than adults, with relatively short legs, large feet and large heads.

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Why is there a button for humans?

We sometimes get photos of people using the same trails as animals do. Please mark any photo sequence containing a person OR vehicle (car, truck, boat, etc.) OR house as human. Human photos are more quickly retired from the classification pool than other types of photos, which helps protect peoples' privacy. If the vehicle or house is very far in the distance and/or mostly blocked by foliage, there is no need to mark these photos as human. We do not consider these a privacy issue and you can classify them as normal. PLEASE do not "Talk" about these photos or mark them with a hashtag - any photos of humans that end up on "Talk" will be deleted immediately. If you have concerns about a particular set of images, please message a team member with the subject ID information instead of sharing it to the talk boards. You can find team member user names along the right hand side of the "Team" page

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What should I do if I get an "Already Seen" banner?

This is actually a great sign and indicates that we are getting near the end of the season! Each photo needs at 5 different volunteers to classify it before it is retired. This means that photos stick around in the system until enough volunteers have classified them. Because we serve up photos randomly to our volunteers, those who have done many classifications will start seeing the "Already Seen" banner more often as fewer photos remain.

If you see the banner, the best thing to do is to click refresh on the page and get a new photo. The reason we don't want you reclassifying the photo is that you are likely to classify it in the same way. It is better to have different individuals classifying a given photo--to get a "second opinion" from someone new, rather than duplicate the classification effort.

You may also see this banner or a "Finished" banner when the project is out of data. To verify whether the current dataset is active, check out the progress bar on the home screen. If it reads 100%, the data has been completely classified. The Snapshot Dubuque County team will be preparing the new dataset in the meantime.

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It’s difficult to tell species apart!

It certainly can be! It can be especially tricky to tell apart canids (wolves, coyotes, fox), mustelids (fisher, mink, otter, etc.), rodents (beaver, muskrat, woodchuck), and lagomorphs (snowshoe hare and cottontail). Check out our field guide (click the tab on the right side of your screen) for more info on distinguishing these and other species.

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How do I classify young deer, antlered deer, and deer with antler nubs?

Our classification options for deer include young, adult antlered, and adult antlerless. Check out our field guide (click the tab on the right side of your screen) for guidance on picking the correct deer classifications.

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What should I do if I come across photos of a sick/injured/dying animal?

If you come across a subject of a sick/injured/dying animal, we ask that you classify the photos as normal. The subject should not be shared to the Zooniverse talk board if the images could be interpreted as graphic or disturbing to some people. In the event that you come across a subject like this on the talk boards, please report the post so it can be reviewed by a Snapshot team member.