Tim R. Hofmeester🐾📷🎶

New paper alert 🚨 Mustelid mugshots: photographing facial masks of European polecats (Mustela putorius) for individual recognition and density estimation using camera traps @MammRes With Nadine Erath, Jeroen Mos and Henrik Thurfjell 1/7 link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Just wanted to highlight there are still a few days left to apply to this two year postdoc position combining satellite remote sensing, camera trapping and AI.

For more info on the postdoc position and how to apply, see this link slu.se/en/about-slu/w…

For more info on the PhD position and how to apply, see this link slu.se/en/about-slu/w…

🚨Job alert🚨 Our Conservation Technology group is growing! We are currently hiring a fully funded doctoral student (4 yrs) with a large focus on passive acoustic monitoring of birds and bats, and a 2 yr postdoc focussing on camera trapping, satellite remote sensing and AI.

A few more days to apply. In case you are doubting if you should apply: We are a growing department working on wildlife conservation and sustainable wildlife management. There are great funding opportunities to work on wildlife in Sweden and Umeå is a great city to be based at.

📢I am recruiting a PhD student in applied quantitative ecology .@FCFCMontana .@umontana to work on large mammal monitoring. More information: jobs.rwfm.tamu.edu/view-job/?id=9…

We are looking for someone with experience with Bayesian hierarchical models and Integrated Population Models. The position will entail grant writing and leading projects, but as a start, we have two projects on which the successful candidate will work, one involving me.

We are growing our team working on quantitative methods to study wildlife/game populations and are now recruiting a researcher for a permanent! position in Umeå. Anyone with a PhD can apply, but some postdoc experience will likely be beneficial. slu.se/en/about-slu/w…

Marco Granata presents excellent work from the Italian Alps, shedding light on under studied small mustelids, with aims to start long term monitoring #35EMC

The draft #35EMC programme is available to view: Programme – European Mustelid Colloquium (european-mustelid-colloquium.org) Registration remains open until 15th September, so why not join us?! #mustelids #mustelidresearch #conference #biology #mustelidmonitoring

Now in press in Current Research in Parasitology & Vector-Borne Diseases @CRPVBD #OpenAccess ▶️sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @FabriNannet @SLUwildresearch @TimHofmeester @HeinS62565 @JorisCromsigt @_SLU @FraukeEcke #Ixodes ricinus #Ungulate #Tick-borne pathogen #Tick abundance #Vegetation #Air temperature

@BenCAugustine @MammRes We actually don't know how large the individual variation in facial patterns is so there very well might be some individuals that cannot be IDed even on good images. I guess we'll need more images/individuals combined with other ID methods to be sure 😅

@TimHofmeester @MammRes Looks like your per individual cumulative detection probabilities are very high, so individual heterogeneity in p would have less of an effect on D ests. My concern was that some weasels might just not be identifiable in good photos, but I don't know anything about that, lol!

New paper alert 🚨 Mustelid mugshots: photographing facial masks of European polecats (Mustela putorius) for individual recognition and density estimation using camera traps @MammRes With Nadine Erath, Jeroen Mos and Henrik Thurfjell 1/7 link.springer.com/article/10.100…

@cameratraps1 @MammRes The only tubes that got destroyed were destroyed by cows. The majority of placements were under vegetation and in stone piles so not very visible.

@TimHofmeester @MammRes Congrats! 🙌 What about vandalism and stolen #cameratraps? The systems seems easily dectectable by humans...

@BenCAugustine @MammRes I think it is mostly random (gut feeling) but can imagine more shy individuals not looking into the tube/camera more often than bolder individuals.

@TimHofmeester @MammRes Any sense about whether IDs are missing at random or if some are more identifiable than others? Comment about looking straight at the camera suggests it's mostly random?

@MustelidDwyer @MammRes Thanks!

@TimHofmeester @MammRes Whoa! This is really exciting stuff, Tim!

As all EU member states need to report the status of their polecat population as one of the species on the Annex V of the EU Council’s Directive on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora, we hope this method will be picked up in other countries 7/7

We think the Polecam shows promise but larger field tests in different sites with known polecat occurrence would be good to see if a larger effort can increase precision in the estimates. As we observed multiple species, it could also be used to look at species interactions. 6/7