ABOUT “ON THE ELK TRAIL”
In 2018, former Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit masters student and WMI grad fellow Travis Zaffarano from Cody, Wyoming wrapped up his master’s research on using trail cameras to count and classify migrating elk. It was a big project that involved a lot of fieldwork with Wyoming Game and Fish Department partners in the Cody and Jackson area, and it also resulted in amazing still photos of migrating animals.

Travis’ project made us want to tell this story in video using unobtrusive motionactivated trail cameras. WMI filmmaker and lifelong elk hunter Greg Nickerson teamed up with Travis to pull the video project off, and @RMEFWY put major support behind the effort to make it possible.

It took a lot of help to bring the full spectacle of the fall elk migration to the public. With @WyoGFD biologist Greg Anderson and volunteers Sarah Domek and Nick Dobric, we hit the trail to set up, monitor, and retrieve the cameras. Greg, Travis, and Ben Kraushaar then narrated, produced and edited the series. None of it would have been possible without a lot of folks at UW, including Elizabeth Traver and Andy Parsekian (thanks for the snowmobiles!), Matt Kauffman, Plum Schultz, Kimmie Takaki, Joanna Merson at the University of Oregon InfroGraphics Lab Department of Geography, University of Oregon, and many others.