Like the fantastic wildlife photos we’ve been capturing through our camera-trapping work?? Well, using a camera-trap can seem daunting at first, but it’s easily learned, and constant practice will help you hone your skills in no time. We at Rimba owe our camera-trapping experience to our dedicated and hardworking wildlife biologist friends over at WWF-Malaysia. Having carried out biodiversity monitoring work in Peninsular Malaysia since 2005, these tireless field scientists have scoured miles and miles of inhospitable terrain and camped out in dense jungle for weeks at a stretch, all in search of that perfect camera-trap location to obtain valuable evidence of elusive wildlife. They’re now one of the most experienced and knowledgeable researchers when it comes to camera-trapping large mammals in tropical rainforests.

These guys have had plenty of opportunity to develop their skills, and their hard work paid off when one of their camera-trap photos won the BBC Wildlife Magazine’s Camera-trap Photo of the Year in 2010. Happily for the rest of us, they’ve decided to use their vast experience to help out fellow researchers. 

Shariff Mohamad and Mark Rayan put together this handy guide to explain the basics to would-be camera-trappers. It tells you a bit about wildlife monitoring, before delving into how to design your camera-trap survey, choose the right sort of camera-trap, how to carry out the work in the field, and finally what to do with the results that you get. Although  this was based on their tiger conservation project, it’s still applicable for other large mammals, and we highly recommend that you make this guide your first point of reference if you’re planning to carry out any sort of field research involving camera-traps in tropical Asia.

Click here to download WWF-Malaysia’s camera-trapping guide. Who knows, in no time you might be capturing award-winning wildlife photos of your own! In the meantime, as we mentioned in our 5th photo update, we’ve entered some of our recent best shots in the International Section of the Trailcampro Trail Camera Photo Contest. If you have a minute, please do hop over and help to vote for either photo #53, #54 or #55!