The Challenge

Field biologists had years of camera trap records across 520 square miles of Marin County terrain. Muir Woods, Mount Tamalpais, Tennessee Valley, Rodeo Valley — sites spread across coastal and mountainous landscape, with observations accumulating since 2012. The data existed. The spatial picture didn't.

These two maps were built to give the research team that picture. The first plotted camera trap locations and scat observations for bobcat and puma across the full study area — showing where monitoring had happened and where animals had been detected. The second mapped regional tracking patterns across the North Bay, visualizing spatial distribution of wildlife activity.

The value wasn't sophisticated analysis. It was spatial context that the team didn't have before: where observations clustered, where movement corridors likely ran between habitat patches, where monitoring coverage had gaps that might explain the absence of detections rather than the absence of animals.

This was one of the first applied GIS projects of Alex's career, produced concurrently with early DoD work. The audience was small — a conservation research team, not policymakers. But the principle was the same: understand what the person needs to see, build the map that shows them that thing, check that it's right before you hand it over.

"The data had been sitting in spreadsheets for years. The maps turned it into something the team could actually see — where the animals were, where the gaps were, where to look next."

Process

  1. 1
    Research Reviewed monitoring data structure; identified camera trap locations, scat observations, and tracking data spanning 2012–2018.
  2. 2
    Data Prep Organized spatial point features; verified geographic coordinates against known habitat areas; structured attribute data for both map outputs.
  3. 3
    GIS Work Mapped approximately 100 camera trap locations and scat observations; designed symbology distinguishing species and detection type; produced regional tracking map for North Bay.
  4. 4
    Output 2 maps reviewed with research team; received positive feedback; supported internal spatial interpretation of monitoring results.
Principle 02
The map is for a person making a decision

Whether the audience is a conservation biologist or a policymaker, the question is the same: what spatial information does this person not have, and what decision could they make differently if they had it? That question drives every design choice.