DNR ‘Snapshot’ data now online

Snapshot Wisconsin, one of the Department of Natural Resources’ largest citizen science projects, opened its new data visualization tool to the public recently. The data dashboard is a new tool that lets the public interact with data collected from approximately 2,000 cameras spread across the state to monitor wildlife.

Snapshot Wisconsin is a citizen science program that provides a unique opportunity for individuals, families and students to get involved in monitoring the state’s valuable natural resources. Snapshot Wisconsin’s data helps inform wildlife management decisions across the state, such as providing fawn-to-doe ratios in each county every year.

Program volunteers host a network of trail cameras across the state that take “snapshots” of animals as they pass by. Additional volunteers then help classify the wildlife in the photos to generate a database of which species are seen by time and location. To date, approximately 47 million images have been collected by the Snapshot Wisconsin program.

The data dashboard offers volunteers and the public a new way to engage directly with this data, letting people choose which information they want to visualize. At launch, the data for 18 wildlife species is available to explore, including what times of the day and year the species is most active and how the species is distributed across the state.

Data can be viewed for specific counties or state-wide, and the data from maps and graphs can even be downloaded to share with others.

Learn more about the data dashboard in the newest Snapshot newsletter and access the data dashboard yourself.

The data dashboard is an evolving product with expanded features already in the works. Additional species will be added to the dashboard over time, and a larger pool of data will be added as more photos are classified. However, the Snapshot team wants to see feedback on the data dashboard.