Increasing Detections of Small to Medium-Sized Mammals Using Multiple Game Cameras

Abstract

Surveys using game cameras have become a standard method to determine presence of small to medium-sized mammals such as Spilogale putorius (Eastern Spotted Skunk). Surveys typically use a single camera at each site; however, prior work with other species suggests that single cameras are less likely than multiple cameras to detect small and mid-size mammals. During the winters of 2019–2020 and 2020–2021, we placed 71 camera stations in the Arkansas Ozarks, with each station having 2 cameras aimed at the same target. We used detections of a common species, Sciurus carolinensis (Eastern Gray Squirrel), to determine if adding an additional camera at each site could increase detections of animals similar in size. Overall, detections increased 27% with the addition of a second camera. We found that a second camera increased Eastern Gray Squirrel detections by 15.6% when the animal was closer than 1 body-length from the target bait tree and 41.2% when the animal was more than 1 body-length from the bait tree. We conclude that a single camera may miss a significant number of detections of small to medium-sized animals and could bias results of detection/non-detection studies.