The Urban Wildlife Information Network (UWIN) is an international alliance of urban wildlife scientists. Over 60 research partners from around the world are working together to understand how cities shape the wildlife communities that call them home.
As of April 2026, UWIN has adopted the WildTrax platform for storing, managing, processing, and sharing data from environmental sensors. SENSR has partnered with UWIN to facilitate the migration of wildlife camera data, run ongoing orientation sessions for camera and acoustic researchers, and help develop new WildTrax features and functionalities.
CONNECTING RESEARCHERS AND DATA
UWIN, SENSR, and WildTrax have a lot in common. All three are committed to advancing the science of environmental sensors; care about open data and making tools freely available; and care about data standards and working in the same way so that more data is available to more people to answer big questions. UWIN was created by the Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo in 2017. Through working together under UWIN, urban wildlife scientists can share methodology, share data, and connect and compare their findings. This lets them understand what patterns are city-specific or common across many kinds of cities. SENSR is working with UWIN to integrate their data into WildTrax and build new functionalities and features that support and enhance UWIN’s mission while also benefitting the wider wildlife camera community.
The advantages of transitioning to WildTrax are numerous:
- WildTrax is the only database that allows users to store, manage, process, and share both wildlife camera and ARU data. This allows UWIN members to easily expand into acoustic monitoring with the same workflows.
- Letting WildTrax take care of database management frees up UWIN staff to focus on the science of urban wildlife.
- The robust user guide and tutorials makes it easier to onboard new UWIN researchers and keep the program growing.
- WildTrax users retain ownership of their data and control its privacy and findability. For instance, a municipality could share buffered locations for monitoring sites and remove sensitive species from public reports.
We’re excited to partner with UWIN to help collaborative wildlife monitoring continue to grow.