DNR seeking volunteers to adopt trail cameras southeast of Mille Lacs Lake

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is seeking local volunteers to adopt trail cameras in targeted research areas southeast of Mille Lacs Lake this fall.

Through the program, the DNR will lend cameras for volunteers to place on land they have permission to access and monitor between Sept. 1 and Oct. 15.

In an interview on Friday, DNR furbearer/wolf research scientist John Erb explained that the project has two major goals.

"The bigger one is that we're looking a little longer-term at establishing a statewide camera survey for what I call furbearing animals," Erb said. "So foxes, wolves, bobcats, raccoons, skunks, a lot of the furry critters."

Erb said the DNR is exploring camera deployment as a way to improve the information gathering process when it comes to monitoring and estimating wildlife populations.

He added that the collected camera data serves as a point of comparison for the DNR's existing wolf survey.

"We have an existing survey we do every five years or so that's based on looking for signs manually, if you will," Erb said. "People seeing tracks, wolves, and signs. So we did that last winter, and we're comparing these two years how that fares against cameras we deployed in the same areas. So that's kind of a second, short-term goal."

The survey area for this autumn's adopt a trail camera program include sixteen townships southeast of Mille Lacs Lake, including Pine City, Mora, and Isle.

"The two main things participants would have to do is deploy the camera somewhere around Sept. 1, and then it sits for six weeks, and then you retrieve it," Erb said. "The second part, we're asking participants to participate in is to actually upload the photos to a third-party website."

Erb explained that the site identifies what appears in each image, and participants will only have to confirm or edit the identification.

"That's one of the benefits of a survey like this," Erb said. "A lot of people have an interest in not only knowing what's present, but just being involved in DNR wildlife monitoring."

The adopt a trail camera program is meant to help the DNR gather data, but also provide residents an opportunity to learn about wildlife monitoring.

"I think it's a win-win," Erb said. "We get good information. It takes a little pressure off our staff. We have so many wildlife surveys we try to do, and there's always a shortage of time to get everything done, and involving private citizens helps us, and helpfully educates and is fun for them, and gives us better data for wildlife populations, which benefits everybody."

Participants can also save images captured by the deployed trail cameras to their personal devices.

Erb said the information gathered through the program helps to make maps of animal distribution, determine what time of day animals are most active, and estimate the abundance of animals in a large area.

"At the very least, we can monitor trends," he added.

Residents who are interested in participating in the adopt a trail camera program can find more details on the DNR website.