At the end of my time in Costa Rica in January 2016, I left a trail-camera tied to a tree trunk on a jungle trail on the Osa Peninsula. The hope was to capture images of some of Costa Rica's cats. Costa Rica isn't one of the first places you'd go to see cats, but I wanted to give it a go. I'd seen plenty of Collared Peccary in the area, and at the bottom of the hill was a beach used by marine turtles to lay their eggs. Both of these are favourite prey of the Jaguar, which are definitely in the area, albeit virtually impossible to see. Other cats that might be captured include Ocelot, Puma, Margay, Oncilla and Jaguarundi.
16 months on, I have the memory card back. The camera was triggered over 5,500 times. It captured Ocelot on 16 occasions, including a visit from a pair at one stage. On two occasions a Puma was captured. The camera eventually succumbed to the humidity of the jungle and stopped working, and during the last couple of months the resulting images were very misted. Unfortunately the second Puma was barely identifiable because of this, despite walking straight towards the camera.
There's still one or two small mammals that I'm yet to identify, but the most common or noteable triggers were caused by: Great Currasow, Ocelot, Collared Peccary, White-faced Capuchin, Puma, Tayra, White-nosed Coati, Spider Monkey, Northern Tamandua, Northern Racoon, Striped Hog-nosed Skunk, Central American Agouti.
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