Candid Critters: Challenges and Solutions in a Large-Scale Citizen Science Camera Trap Project

Citizen science projects that use sensors (such as camera traps) to collect data can collect large-scale data without compromising information quality. However, project management challenges are increased when data collection is scaled up. Here, we provide an overview of our efforts to conduct a large-scale citizen science project using camera traps—North Carolina’s Candid Critters. We worked with 63 public libraries to distribute camera traps to volunteers in all 100 counties in North Carolina, USA. Candid Critters engaged 580 volunteers to deploy cameras at 4,295 locations across private and public lands, collecting 120,671 wildlife records and 2.2 million photographs. We provide eight key suggestions for overcoming challenges in study design, volunteer recruitment and management, equipment distribution, outreach, training, and data management. We found that citizen science was a successful and economical method for collecting large-scale wildlife records, and the use of sensors allowed for inspectable quality and streamlined acquisition. In three years, we collected roughly five times the number of verified mammal records than were previously available in North Carolina, and completed the work for less than the typical cost of collecting data with field assistants. The project also yielded many positive outcomes for adult and youth volunteers. Although citizen science presents many challenges, we hope that sharing our experiences will provide useful insight for those hoping to use sensors for citizen science over large scales.