Amazing Photos Of Animals In The Wild, Snapped By Hidden Automatic Cameras

The Smithsonian’s WILD project uses advanced automated cameras to capture images of animals in their natural habitats as they go about their day. It’s a much better kind of specimen than a dead, stuffed animal. Bill McShea has traveled to China more than 20 times as a research ecologist in search of pandas--or at least signs of them--while working with conservation parks eager to monitor their wildlife. In all that time, he has seen a panda, with his own eyes, twice. The unglamorous career of an ecologist more often involves scavenging for scat or animal tracks, the evidence left behind. “That’s my living. You’d be surprised how few wildlife I see,” says McShea, an ecologist with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. “You just never see them. If you are wildlife living in some place like Asia, you’re running for your life ev...