Jasper National Park is preparing to post images captured throughout the park by their remote cameras – a highly successful project that was previously launched in Banff and Waterton national parks. 

The images capture animals in their true natural habitat, doing as bears, wolves and moose do when there isn’t a human around for miles. 

“The beautiful thing about these cameras is they do not just capture one species,” said Brenda Shepherd, park ecologist for Parks Canada.

The animals captured vary from the most common – elk, goats, deer, bears – to the more elusive species that are rarely seen in the park – wolverines, caribou, lynx, cougars and more. 

Shepherd says the images help illustrate why it’s so important to protect the park and the wildlife within it. 

“It’s sort of that understanding of what Jasper National Park really means,” she says. 

The cameras are being used all over the world, in far-away destinations to track animals such as tigers. Jasper National Park uses the cameras to track multiple species and detect trends and changes in populations over time. 

“These remote cameras have been a really important tool for biologists,” Shepherd says. One of the major reasons for their success, is that they are non-invasive to the animals. “We really like that.” 

Most of the cameras are set up along the northern boundary of the park from Rock Creek almost to Berg Lake. A few cameras are set out to the north of the townsite as well. The cameras are carefully hidden so that animals – and humans – don’t see them. 

“We try to keep them less visible,” Shepherd says. 

Because people use the landscape in the park as much as other species, the human scent surrounding the cameras doesn’t bother the animals. Sometimes the images show an animal creeping up and investigating the camera, which is the case of a moose that visited one camera’s location in September 2010. 

“They can be curious too, because our scent is there,” Shepherd says. 

The cameras are made by Reconyx and track movement using infrared technology. The camera fires only when it detects changes in heat. Some take colour photos during the day and black and white at night, and others shoot simply black and white. 

The cameras have been in use in Jasper National Park since around 1998, and a number of different projects have used the technology. One of the most successful was when Parks monitored the movement of grizzly bears around the Jasper Park Lodge when the corridor was opened. 

Now the cameras monitor not only the animals in the park, but the human use of trails as well. Parks can then determine how to better manage trails and be aware of which ones are more popular than others. Sometimes the images capture close encounters between humans and wildlife – with a hiking group passing through, followed closely by one wild animal or another. 

“How close we are to wildlife, we sometimes don’t realize,” Shepherd says.

The cameras are positioned carefully so that they can capture some truly amazing images, Shepherd says. One perfect spot they aim for is across from a rub tree, where bears scratch their itchy backs. Other animals will seek out the trees as they are covered in scent from other species. 

“Grizzly bears may go out of their way to visit a rub tree,” Shepherd said. 

Sometimes the sex of a bear can be determined with just the photos, but Parks Canada has a back-up plan when it comes to monitoring male and female populations. 

The trees are naturally rubbed smooth by the bear’s use. Parks Canada uses the rubbing posts to collect DNA by attaching strands of barbed wire that collect hair – and further scratch the itchy bear’s back. With such thick hide, the bears barely notice the barbed wire, Shepherd says. The DNA helps Parks biologists determine whether the bear is male or female, and monitor changes in the populations over time. There are three wire strands attached high up, and one lower down called a “cub rub” that captures DNA from the baby bears. Other animals investigate the trees and use them to itch as well. Wolves and foxes occasionally check them out. 

Now that the DNA collection sites are being paired with a camera, the images that can be captured are simply priceless – giant grizzly bears taking a break to scratch their backs, with relaxed eyes and playful movements. 

Shepherd is working on a project that focuses on monitoring grizzly bears, while also noting the many species that cross the path of the Reconyx cameras. The project is a partnership with a graduate student out of the University of Montana. The project will help Parks refine the monitoring process, and the results will be printed in the State of the Park report that is released every five years. 

Parks staff go out into the field to trade the cards inside the camera for a new one every few months, and Shepherd said it’s an exciting day when the cards are returned to the Parks Canada office. It can sometimes take days to get to the remote locations of the cameras.

“It’s kind of like Christmas,” she says. “Everybody can’t wait to get in and put the card in and see what they captured.”

Usually Parks staff are rewarded with incredible images of animals being wild. 

“Sometimes it’s just that glimpse of wilderness,” Shepherd says, when asked about the appeal of the images. The ecologist enjoys the incredible variety that is captured on every memory card. 

Shepherd says Parks has been working on cataloguing all the images, which has proven to be a massive amount of work that will pay off as the years go on. Biologists will be able to flip to a particular day and see the movement of animals, or track the changes between seasons and so on. 

With the data collected, Parks Canada is starting to get an idea of the changes in wildlife movement over time. The current monitoring project is in its second year, and Shepherd predicts they should soon be able to start developing some concrete facts.

“You need a fair bit of data before you can start to look at trends over time,” she says. 

Shepherd hopes to have the images online within the next two months. Parks staff will be going through the images and posting some of the more spectacular ones that have been captured. They will be available at the Jasper National Park website.

Images that have been captured in Banff National Park can be seen on the park’s website. A video that shows a year in the life of a trail camera has also been posted on Parks Canada’s YouTube page.