WildObs Database: From Field to Discovery

Australia's camera trappers collectively generate millions of images and videos each year - most stored in bespoke formats, inaccessible beyond the original research team. The WildObs Database is changing that.

This isn't your typical data webinar. We open with a story: three researchers in one lab, camera trapping across the same rainforest, years apart. By openly sharing reusable data, they identified critical monitoring gaps, published findings before anyone collected additional images, and ended up as co-authors on work none of them could have produced alone. It's a glimpse of what becomes possible when Australia's camera trappers work as one big collaborative lab.

From there, we'll take you through the WildObs Database in full:

• how data enters via the WildObs Image Platform or our legacy data submission tool

• how it is curated to the international Camtrap DP standard

• and how it is delivered to researchers and land managers through WildObsR, ALA, TERN EcoPlots, and our forthcoming web application.

We will also address sensitive data governance, attribution via RAiD and ORCID, and what FAIR data principles mean in practice for camera trap ecology.

This webinar follows our highly attended March 2026 Introduction to WildObs webinar (YouTube), and builds directly on questions raised by that community.

Who is this webinar for?

Anyone interested in long-term wildlife monitoring across Australia, camera trapping or with questions about WildObs.

This webinar will be relevant to people working in national, state, and local government environmental departments, environmental groups (NGOs, academics, or other managers), as well as anyone using camera traps.

We are excited to welcome all members of the wildlife monitoring community, particularly providers and users of camera trap data.

What is the schedule?

Thursday 16 April 2026

(AEST / UTC+10 / Brisbane time):

12:30 - 1:15 PM - Hear from the WildObs team.

1:15 - 1:30 PM - Questions from the audience.

Recording

This is session will be recorded. The recording will be provided to all registrants and published publically on YouTube.

Acknowledgement

WildObs is a co-investment partnership with the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) through the Planet Research Data Commons (DOI: 10.3565/bvg2-b035). The ARDC is enabled by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).