Data from: Raccoon density estimation from camera traps for rabies virus management

During the springs of 2019 and 2020, we conducted camera trapping at 12 sites at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. These sites were the same locations where Hill et al. (2023) conducted live trapping. The objective of our study was to determine if we could reliably estimate raccoon densities from images of unmarked animals. We conducted the camera trap study in the location where a live-trap mark-recapture study of raccoons was being conducted (Hill et al. 2023) to know what densities at each site should be.

At each site we installed camera traps (Reconyx PC900 Hyperfire Professional IR cameras; Reconyx, Holmen, WI, USA) ~150 cm above the ground using stainless steel camera mounts and we angled cameras to ensure our bait was in the center of the frame. We baited each camera with a single plaster tab scented with fish oil, which we replaced each week. We deployed 34 cameras at each site. We used a 25-camera array (5×5 array with cameras at 100-m spacing) located in the same locations where box traps were deployed during live-trapping sessions. In addition, we added a 9-camera array (3×3 array with 200-m spacing) next to the 25-camera array to allow for a broader examination of effort reduction. We set cameras to take 3 pictures per motion-trigger event on a 1-second interval with no quiet period. We ran camera traps from 21-24 days for each site (exception for first round of 2019, which ran for 15 days). We recorded the date and time (DateTimeOriginal), if the photo used infrared (InfraredIlluminator - 1=Yes, 0=No), the species observed and the number of each (ID), the site name designation (Site), the camera name designation (camera), and an indicator if the image was the first in the motion capture burst (firstImage) for each photo. We also gave each image record a unique record ID (RecordID). The species and number of species in the record are denoted by a short species code designation (see SpeciesIDCode table for interpretation). The number of repeats of a species code indicates the number of individuals of that species seen on an image.

Related study: Hill, J. E., J. L. Helton, D. A. Bernasconi, W. C. Dixon, M. T. Hamilton, R. B. Chipman, A. T. Gilbert, J. C. Beasley, G. Dharmarajan, and O. E. Rhodes Jr. 2023. Raccoon densities across four land cover types in the southeastern United States. Journal of Wildlife Management 87:e22480.