Wildlife Linkage Ground Truthing
Wildlife linkage ground truthing is the process of conducting fieldwork to determine whether a map or GIS data accurately represents either animal absence/presence or movement. At Connectivity for Wildlife, ground truthing is conducted by a variety of methods including, but not limited to:
- Motion activated, infrared camera traps
- Identification of tracks and other animal signs
- Night time spotlighting
- On site observation
- Gathering road kill data
Although identifying habitats and linkages by producing GIS maps is extremely valuable and is the usual first step in identifying wildlife linkages, it does not provide a complete picture. Ground truthing is required to provide robust data. This ground truthing needs to be performed not only at a point in time but over an extended period of time.
The most often used forms of ground truthing are camera traps and tracking.
