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A University of Minnesota ecology professor
and expert in lion behavior has turned to "crowdfunding" to raise
enough money to transmit thousands of images over the Internet of
lions from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.


      The Minnesota Daily reports that
professor Craig Packer and his crew of staff and students have
placed more than 200 heat- and motion-activated cameras in the
park.


      The cameras "capture an incredible amount of pictures and we
are now in position to share them with the public, but this where
our project has stalled and we could use the public's help,"
Packer said.


      The cameras produce more than a million images a year, but
bringing those images back to the university has been difficult due
to lack of Internet access at the research station.


      So the team is trying to raise $14,000 to put their station
online so they can transmit the images back to Minnesota and make
them publicly available on the Internet.


      Packer said his research gets most of its funding through the
National Science Foundation, but budget cuts there have prompted
him to turn to the public.


      The group has turned to the SciFund Challenge online, which lets
people make small donations to scientific projects. The challenge
began Nov. 1 and ends Dec. 15.


      "People who are interested in this type of work can actually
donate and do their part in helping us complete this project,"
Packer said.


Packer said they also want to encourage the idea of
crowdfunding for scientific research in general.


      "We really do want to engage a large number of people to become
citizen scientists and share that sense of excitement we feel when
we're conducting our research," he said.
      

Patrick Dousa, a graduate student at the Humphrey School and a
research assistant for the ecology department, has gotten up close
with the lions and assisted in the setup of the cameras.

      He's also excited about increasing the public's involvement in
the work. "I'm really interested in the idea of citizen scientists
and having people see these images and know the differences between
the lions," Dousa said.

Gallery

Environmental News

A University of Minnesota ecology professor
and expert in lion behavior has turned to "crowdfunding" to raise
enough money to transmit thousands of images over the Internet of
lions from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.


U of M lion researcher turns to 'crowdfunding'

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