WildObs hosts analysis-ready camera trap data, with additional access through partner biodiversity networks. This guide explains where public data is published and how to access it.
Whether or not data is made public depends on the data sharing agreement associated with a project or collaborator. To learn about what data is made public, please visit Data sharing terms. This guide does not apply to data that is not made public.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
On WildObs
WildObs is the primary home for all curated Australian camera trap data. It provides free access to standardised, analysis-ready wildlife observation data - see WildObs data standards. All public data is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0).
Every project published by WildObs is assigned a Research Activity Identifier (RAiD) so that data is correctly attributed to the researchers who collected it. See Citing WildObs data.
There are two ways to access the data:
- Interactively, through the WildObs Database Dashboard.
- Programmatically, through the WildObsR R package.
You need a WildObs account for both. The database is refreshed every 2 to 3 months as new data is curated, and refreshes will become more frequent as we receive more data.
WildObs Database Dashboard
The WildObs Database Dashboard is a secure connection to the WildObs database. Sign in to browse projects, read project metadata, and download data. Summary figures at the top of the page show the current size of the database: the number of projects, and the number of records in the deployments, media, and observations resources.
Find a project
Use the search panel to narrow down the list of datasets. You can:
- Type all or part of a project name into Project name, which returns partial matches
- Select a principal investigator from the Author dropdown list
Read project details
Select More on any public dataset to open a summary of the project. Each summary covers:
- the project description, survey period and sampling design
- a map of the area surveyed
- the species detected
- the contributors and the data sharing agreement that applies
- related identifiers, such as RAiDs and DOIs
- a link to the platform where the source data was created, such as Wildlife Insights or the WildObs image platform
- a formatted citation you can copy
The map shows a bounding box around the camera locations rather than the cameras themselves. Small projects are shown with an enlarged bounding box, so exact locations stay private.
Download public data
Select the download icon next to a dataset. What you receive depends on the data sharing agreement:
- Open — the full data package downloads as a .zip file containing deployments.csv, observations.csv, media.csv, covariates.csv, and datapackage.json. These files are described in WildObs data standards.
- Partial — only the datapackage.json metadata file is included, because the project's embargo period has not expired. The metadata still lets you find the project, understand its scope, and contact the data provider.
To download every public dataset at once, select All public datasets. This download is currently around 214 MB. The dashboard shows the size before you confirm.
Data packages contain file paths for images, not the images themselves. These paths point to either the Atlas of Living Australia or the WildObs image repository. To view or download camera trap images, use the Atlas of Living Australia.
Access your own data
Select the My datasets tab to see projects you are associated with, including projects with partial or closed data sharing agreements. Projects you contributed to but did not lead appear under Contributor projects.
Access is matched on your email address, so sign in with the same address recorded against the project. Datasets with closed agreements are visible only to the people tied to that project — nobody else sees them listed. If you have not submitted data to WildObs, this tab will be empty and show a link to submit data through our legacy data mobilisation survey.
When you download a non-public dataset, a confirmation window opens, and a download link is emailed to your registered address. The link expires after 24 hours. Non-public datasets may contain confidential information, so do not share the link or the dataset with unauthorised people.
If your projects do not appear as expected, email data@wildobs.org.au.
Create an API key
To use WildObsR, you need an API key. Select Create in the API key panel in the top right of the dashboard.
Treat your API key like a password:
- do not share it
- do not include it in scripts, notebooks or repositories you publish, including GitHub
WildObsR R package
The WildObsR R package provides programmatic access to WildObs data. Use it to search, filter, and download camera trap data packages directly into your R session, without downloading files by hand.
What WildObsR can access
WildObsR provides access to public data only. It connects to a database that holds public data exclusively, which means:
- projects with a closed data sharing agreement are not present at all
- projects with a partial agreement return metadata only (datapackage.json)
- projects with an open agreement return all resources
To access your own non-public data, use the My datasets tab on the dashboard instead.
Records for species listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) are returned in obscured form. See how we obscure sensitive species information for what is obscured and why.
Get started
- Sign in to the WildObs Database Dashboard and create an API key
- Follow the setup instructions in the WildObsR README on GitHub to store your key securely and load the R package.
- Use the package functions to search the database and download data packages.
WildObsR is currently available from GitHub.
Partner platforms
WildObs data is shared with partner platforms, ensuring broader discoverability across national and international biodiversity networks. To understand how WildObs data is made interoperable with our partners, visit WildObs data standards.
Atlas of Living Australia
The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is Australia's largest biodiversity data aggregator. WildObs occurrence records and a curated selection of tagged wildlife images are published on ALA. Find WildObs data on ALA by:
- Searching occurrence records via the Atlas of Living Australia website.
- Visiting the WildObs data partner page on ALA.
- Programmatically using ALA's galah R package.
When searching ALA, you can filter by data resource using the name of the dataset. For example, all images from the WildObs dataset 'Camera trap surveys in Queensland's Wet Tropics 2022-2023' are accessible here.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
The ALA is the Australian node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Records published on ALA are also available on GBIF by:
- Searching occurrence records via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility website.
- Visiting the WildObs publisher page on GBIF.
- Programmatically via GBIF's API. Find out more how you can access data directly or using R and Python packages on GBIF Technical Documentation - Using data.
Future publication locations
TERN and EcoPlots
WildObs are working with Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) to share structured, survey-based datasets via the EcoPlots platform. This data will be accessible using the ausplotsR R package.
Wild Album
WildObs are collaborating to harmonise camera trap data internationally. As part of this effort, camera trap datasets will be findable and accessible via the GBIF-hosted Wild Album portal. This portal is dedicated to datasets from camera trap deployments in the Camera Trap Data Package (Camtrap DP) format.
Other partners
Depending on project needs and data type, data with open and partial data sharing agreements may also be shared with:
- Federal Biodiversity Data Repository (BDR)
- Threatened Species Index (TSX)
- Relevant state biodiversity data systems
Data publication considerations
Citing WildObs data
Cite each dataset you use, using the citation supplied with it. There is no single citation for the WildObs database as a whole, so if your analysis draws on several projects, cite each one.
This matters because camera trap data is collected by many different research teams. Citing individual packages credits the people who did the fieldwork, not just the platform that curated it.
Use the citation we provide
Every data package includes a formatted citation in the `bibliographicCitation` field of its metadata (i.e., the datapackage.json file). The same citation appears at the bottom of the project summary you open with More on the dashboard, so you can copy it without opening the data package.
For example:
Zachary Amir, Tom Bruce & Matthew Luskin (2022). WildObs Camera Trap Data Package: Zachary Amir's camera trap surveys from 6 national parks in QLD's Wet Tropics rainforests from late 2022 to early 2023 targeting feral and native vertebrates [Camera Trap Data Package]. WildObs National Wildlife Camera Database. https://wildobs.org.au. RAiD: https://raid.org/10.83062/cb5829ab
The citation brings together the contributors, the sampling period, the project title and the Research Activity Identifier (RAiD). If you need to adapt it to a particular journal or reference style, keep the RAiD.
Why we use RAiDs
A RAiD is a persistent identifier for a research activity, rather than for a single output like a paper or a dataset. Each WildObs RAiD is minted through the Australian Research Data Commons and records the connections between a project and:
- The ORCID iDs of the researchers involved
- The Research Organization Registry (ROR) identifiers of their institutions
- Related identifiers, such as DOIs for research papers and for datasets published by partner platforms
A citation of any one output can be traced across the whole research activity because these connections are recorded in the RAiD. A researcher's fieldwork, their published paper and the curated data package are all linked to the same identifier.
Datasets with several identifiers
A dataset may carry more than one persistent identifier, because WildObs data is shared across multiple platforms and partners mint their own. The Atlas of Living Australia and TERN, for example, each generate DOIs for the records they publish.
Including the RAiD in your citation ties those identifiers back to a single research activity. If you also want to credit the platform you obtained the data from, cite its DOI alongside the RAiD rather than instead of it.
More detailed guidance
We are developing an attribution guide for citing single and multiple datasets, so that everyone involved across the data lifecycle is properly credited. If you have a citation question in the meantime, email data@wildobs.org.au.
No duplication
To ensure data is findable and accessible, it is not exclusively stored in one place. However, collaborative efforts in integration and mapping between platforms (and their respective data standards) ensures data can be discovered and used across biodiversity networks without duplication.
Sensitive data
Some datasets contain records of threatened species or are collected on private properties. These records are subject to additional privacy and access controls in accordance with legal and ethical guidelines. Sensitive species, such as those listed under the EPBC Act or state-level threat listings, have identifying information obscured, including deployment, event, observation, and media identifiers. For more information on which data is shared and how sensitive data is handled, please read our policy on sensitive species data obscuring.
Declaration of AI assistance: Some initial notes for this article prepared by Zachary Amir were structured and drafted using AI assistant Claude (claude-opus-4-5-20250514).
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