Eyes on or hands on? A discussion of human interference

[Pckts]

(09-22-2014, 03:42 PM)'Siegfried' Wrote: If camera traps are exclusively used in lieu of capturing/examining/collaring, researchers would not only be able to interpret the photos objectively.  Without REALLY knowing the dimensions of individual cats, people would use terms like "monster" to describe average sized individuals.  While it could be argued that the process of capturing/examining/collaring no doubt stresses the individual animal, the benefit to the species as a whole far outweighs (IMHO) the dangers to the individual.  Also, first aid can be performed on injuries during these captures which has the potential of benefiting the individual. 

 

What does it matter how large a cat is?
How does knowing a cats size matter to the cat?
Injuries can and are detected visually, if a cat is injured it should be left a lone, in all honesty. Unless the cat is injured due to human intereferrence.
Also, camera traps can absolutely tell size, its called scaling.
They will use a human to scale the size of the area the camera is photographing, than compare the cat to the human and get a fairly good estimate, but once again, its serves no conservational purpose to know the size of a cat. That is humans curiosity not animal conservation.

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