Thousands of animal photos give glimpse of wildlife in city

Missing the great outdoors during the pandemic? The City of Calgary has a way for you to spot wildlife from the comfort of your computer.

The city has dozens of wildlife cameras positioned in its many parks that take photos of animals and birds. Through the program, called Calgary Captured Zooniverse, Calgarians can scroll through the photos and help identify the species.

After two years, the scientific photo collection now totals more than 200,000 photos. The city just released an additional 34,000 photos, all of which need "citizen scientists' to identify the animals in them.

To help with the project, anyone can make a free account on Zooniverse.org and start sharing their observations.

Here's a sampling of the covert animal photos available for browsing:

One of the Calgary Captured wildlife cameras picked up this deer on Oct. 8, 2019. Citizens taking part in the project will add to the database what they think the deer's species is.

A Calgary Captured camera caught this critter inspecting the technology on March 7.

This cat was caught prowling in a Calgary area park on Feb. 23. If you think you know what species it is, you can add your comment on the Calgary Captured website.

The nose of this animal is likely enough to identify it.

This creature went for a nocturnal prowl on March 1 through the snow.

Calgary Parks uses the data collected through Calgary Captured to guide its decisions around planning parks and managing wildlife.