- The Kichwa Sani Isla community and the U.S. organization fStop Foundation are using high-resolution camera traps to document biodiversity around a community-run eco-lodge in Ecuador.
- Scientists trained community members to install, maintain and operate the cameras, including devices placed 40 meters (130 feet) up in the treetops.
- Since February 2025, the cameras have recorded at least six jaguars, suggesting an intact food chain and a healthy ecosystem.
- The Kichwa community has made ecotourism an effective tool for conservation through its Sani Lodge, helping curb pressures on the forest.
Ecuador’s northern Amazon is home to some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet, including Yasuní National Park. But visitors are rarely able to see iconic large mammals like deer, lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) or the mythic jaguar (Panthera onca). In the middle of the dense jungle, the only tangible evidence of these creatures is usually their tracks. However, the Sani Lodge, a community-run ecotourism venture in Yasuní, is deploying camera traps to document wildcats, rodents, primates and other mammals that share the same paths as humans — and are closer than they seem.
“The footage shows that the animals are watching and listening to us,” says Javier Hualinga, a naturalist guide and former manager of the Sani Isla Kichwa community tourism project, which sits inside the national park and south of Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. Covering 31,000 hectares (76,000 acres), the Sani Lodge is owned and run by the Indigenous Kichwa community.
Even for Hualinga — who uses his honed senses to find monkeys 40 meters (130 feet) up in the trees, amphibians camouflaged between leaves, and insects disguised as branches — locating a wildcat is like looking for a needle in a haystack. For this reason, the camera-trap project is an opportunity to show clients the wildlife they help to preserve with their visit.
Sani Lodge, which opened in 2002, has become a buffer against oil exploitation, the advance of the agricultural frontier, deforestation and excessive hunting. Hualinga says the community has realized that protecting its territory maintains biodiversity and attracts tourists, especially birders who visit the community reserve for a glimpse of some of 600 species of birds found around the lodge. As a result, the lodge has become a stable source of work for members of the community, discouraging activities that put pressure on the forest.
Camera-trap monitoring began this year, part of an alliance between the Sani Isla people and the fStop Foundation. Based in the U.S. state of Florida, fStop aims to raise awareness about the importance of conservation through wildlife photography. The camera traps also allow the community to observe the ecology of the forest, the activities that threaten it, and identify any anomalies or even new species. All this information can be used to inform conservation management measures.
In February 2025, members of the fStop Foundation and the community installed 13 high-resolution camera traps on the ground and in the canopy to record sound and video. Since then, they’ve shown that wildlife communities remain intact, according to Sean McHugh, a wildlife biologist at fStop.
McHugh, who has worked on projects on Sani Isla land for around 10 years, says the community’s territory “acts as a refuge for sensitive species of mammals which could be affected by deforestation, hunting and the advance of the agricultural frontier in the surrounding area.” While a significant percentage of the community’s territory is located inside Yasuní National Park, it’s flanked to the northwest by Shushufindi and Lago Agrio, the main oil-extraction hubs in Ecuador. It’s also surrounded by oil palm plantations, which drive deforestation and use toxic agrochemicals.
Eyes in the forest
McHugh and Ollie Thomas, a British herpetologist, led a course on the installation and use of camera traps with five local youths, who are also training to be tour guides. César Gualinga, the lodge’s senior administrator, also took part. The course included adjusting settings, maintaining the camera, changing batteries, and using memory cards.
The initial training took about a month, including the time required to install cameras in the territory. The team from Sani Lodge and the fStop Foundations placed some devices only half an hour’s walk from the lodge and others several hours away. They selected the locations based on local knowledge of wildlife movements. The guides, who grew up here and walk the trails almost daily, are very familiar with these places, because of the tracks and other signs left by the animals.
The team installed nine cameras on the forest floor, on or near paths used by tourists; one at a clay lick, where birds like macaws and parrots flock for vital minerals; and three in the tops of trees, including in a sangre de gallina (“chicken blood”) tree, Otoba glycycarpa.
Gualinga and the youths who took part in the training had to learn to climb trees as tall as 40 m with harnesses and ropes to install the devices. McHugh says that Thomas, an experienced rock climber, developed a method with pulleys to raise and lower the camera from the floor once installed, making for easier maintenance. He adds this is the first time an apparatus like this has been used at heights in this area.
The Sani Lodge team were given replacement rechargeable batteries and SD cards to ensure the cameras could keep operate uninterrupted. They also learned how to transfer video and photo files from the memory cards to a hard disk and then to a shared drive on the cloud so that both Sani Lodge and the fStop Foundation could access the images. For McHugh, this process goes beyond scientific data: he says he wants to empower the community with new skills that can generate employment opportunities.
The project uses the best-quality cameras available, McHugh says, but the humidity of the Amazon Rainforest is already taking its toll. Three cameras have been damaged by these conditions — something McHugh foresaw when he trained the community members on how to identify malfunctioning cameras and when to remove them. These setbacks don’t spell the project’s end, however; the fStop Foundation says it plans to donate a new batch of cameras to continue the monitoring.
A robust jaguar population
The monitoring on Sani Isla land has revealed the rich biodiversity of the territory and the unexpected behavior of wildlife in this ecosystem. For McHugh, one of the most important findings is that of a “robust jaguar population.” The team has identified six individuals, distinguishable by their unique spot patterns. Gualinga, the administrator, and Hualinga, the veteran guide, say this is an indicator of the health of the forest and the food chain.
The monitoring on Sani Isla land has revealed the rich biodiversity of the territory and the unexpected behavior of wildlife in this ecosystem. For McHugh, one of the most important findings is that of a “robust jaguar population.” The team has identified six individuals, distinguishable by their unique spot patterns. Gualinga, the administrator, and Hualinga, the veteran guide, say this is an indicator of the health of the forest and the food chain.
What’s “incredible,” according to Gualinga, is the behavior of the area’s jaguars, the largest wildcats in the Americas. He says several individuals have been recorded acting in a very similar way to domestic cats: they take naps, groom themselves with their tongues, and approach the camera traps to investigate them. What’s more, Hualinga says, there’s evidence of jaguars approaching very close to the lodge, half an hour’s walk or 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) away. But this shouldn’t be cause for alarm, he adds: jaguars and other species have learned that human beings are predators, so they slip away into the forest when they see or hear them.
The terrestrial cameras have provided vivid images material of a wide range of mammals, including pumas (Puma concolor), ocelots (Leopardus pardalis), giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu), white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari), red brockets (Mazama americana) and lowland tapirs.
In the canopy, the cameras have recorded seven different species of primates, including Colombian red howler monkeys (Alouatta seniculus), squirrel monkeys (genus Saimiri), white-fronted capuchins (Cebus albifrons), Spix’s night monkeys (Aotus vociferans), black-mantled tamarins (Leontocebus nigricollis) and pygmy marmosets (Cebuella pygmaea). The presence of populations of silvery woolly monkeys (Lagothrix lagothricha poeppigii) “indicates that the forest is healthy because it has the tree species these animals need to survive,” Hualinga says.
They’ve also recorded other hard-to-see animals, such as southern Amazon red squirrels (Sciurus spadiceus), a species not seen for some time in the area. Gualinga, the lodge administrator, says he was also surprised to see that porcupines feed up to 40 m above the ground; before this, the species was believed to only climb up to 3 m (9 ft).
“It’s a very interesting project because we’ve recorded many species that we didn’t know feed in the canopy,” Gualinga says.
The Sani Lodge team now shows tourists videos of the species that inhabit the area. Many are surprised by what is hidden by the forest, Gualinga says. They also share videos of pumas, tamarins and peccaries on the community enterprise’s social networks.
All the cameras are situated in the part of the territory that lies within Sucumbíos province. McHugh says he plans to install new devices to the south of the Napo River, in Orellana province, where a large part of the Sani Isla territory is located. He says he also wants to get more members of the community involved, including women. The goal is to establish long-term monitoring that can provide a clear picture of the health of the forest, identify changes or threats, and reinforce community conservation measures.
Banner image: A jaguar scratching itself on a branch, captured by a camera trap in Sani Isla, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Image courtesy of fStop Foundation.
This story was first published here in Spanish on July 31, 2025.
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