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A Michigan ecologist is snapping animal pictures for research

Animals, get your best pose ready. 

The University of Michigan is snapping pictures of wild animals in an effort to document how populations of meat-eating animals vary across terrain, according to a press release.

Credit Eric Bronson, Michigan Photography
Harris installing one of the “camera traps” on the base of a tree. Sixty of the digital cameras were installed at the U-M Biological Station over the summer.

Photographs are being taken in three areas: The U-M Biological Station, the upper peninsula and a wildlife refuge near Saginaw.

"We're really interested in understanding how species vary across space, their different behaviors, what they're eating, the type of parasites that they have," University of Michigan wildlife ecologist Nyeema Harris says in a University of Michigan video. "Our first question is 'is the species there?'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQrkn82KELs

More from the press release:

Specifically, the researchers want to know how the animals' daily activity patterns, the types of habitats they use, their diet and even the parasites that plague them differ between locations. This data trove is expected to yield insights for wildlife management and conservation efforts now and in the future, as these animal populations shift in response to human-induced pressures such as urbanization and climate change.

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