Camera traps and guard observations as an alternative to researcher observation for studying anthropogenic foraging

Foraging by wildlife on anthropogenic foods can have negative impacts on both humans and wildlife. Addressing this issue requires reliable data on the patterns of anthropogenic foraging by wild animals, but while direct observation by researchers can be highly accurate, this method is also costly and labour-intensive, making it impractical in the long- term or over large spatial areas. Camera traps and observations by guards employed to deter animals from fields could be efficient alternative methods of data collection for understanding patterns of foraging by wildlife in crop fields. Here we investigated how data on crop-foraging by chacma baboons and vervet monkeys collected by camera traps and crop guards predicted data collected by researchers, on a commercial farm in South Africa. We found that data from camera traps and field guard observations predicted crop loss and the frequency of crop-foraging events from researcher observations for crop-foraging by baboons and to a lesser extent for vervets. The effectiveness of cameras at capturing crop-foraging events was dependent on their position on the field edge. We believe that these alternatives to direct observation by researchers represent an efficient and low-cost method for long-term and large-scale monitoring of foraging by wildlife on crops.Funding provided by: Natural Environment Research CouncilCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000270Award Number: NE/S007431/1Funding provided by: Natural Environment Research CouncilCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000270Award Number: NE/J500215/1Data on the timing and impact of crop-foraging by chacma baboons and vervet monkeys on a field in South Africa were collected through camera trapping and observations by researchers and guards. Data are presented in their raw form, though other data that are sensitive or irrelevant to the publication have been removed. For full methods and analyses, see linked paper in Ecology and Evolution