Research overview: ethics of camera trapping and animal welfare

Although non-invasive compared with handling or collaring, camera trapping raises ethical considerations around animal welfare, disturbance, and responsible practice. This overview surveys the welfare dimensions of camera deployment, the potential for flash and sound to stress or displace animals, the risks of baiting in altering behavior or transmitting disease, disturbance to sensitive sites such as dens, and the cumulative impact of dense arrays. It discusses emerging guidelines and codes of practice that encourage minimizing disturbance, avoiding harm to non-target species, and weighing the conservation value of data against any welfare costs. The overview also considers the ethics of revealing locations of vulnerable species. For both researchers and hobbyist photographers, the overview frames camera trapping as a low-impact but not impact-free method requiring thoughtful, ethical deployment to respect the animals studied.