Sustainable Development Spotlight: Supporting Creatures on Campus
Posted on Thursday 30 October 2025
Funded by the University’s Latte Levy, the York SU Sustainable Development Grant offers funding to projects that aim to address at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals within the York Community. With 17 Goals to choose from, this means the Grant funds a broad range of innovative, inspiring and impactful initiatives.
Sustainable Development Spotlight stories celebrate the work delivered with the help of the Grant and interview successful applicants to find out more about how they used the Grant funding to realise their ambitions and have a real impact in the York community.
In this article, York SU chats to the volunteering project Creatures on Campus about how they used the Sustainable Development Grant to start monitoring biodiversity on campus.
Can you tell us a bit about how you used the Sustainable Development Grant to support the work Creatures on Campus do?
So the project was acquiring some trail cams to set up at different locations around campus and to see what we spot on each one and track what kind of animals we're seeing. We’ll then be able to use those pictures to both share so people have an awareness of what's around on campus and also encourage more people to get involved with Creatures on Campus. Also, in the longer term, we want to be able to use what we've seen to advise other groups on campus about how they can best help the things that we're seeing through the trail cams, what different species are around and where they are concentrated. Ultimately trying to answer the question: what are the most important areas of campus to kind of protect because of what we're seeing there?
What have you discovered about nature on campus so far with the trail cams?
The trail cam placement is an iterative process. In our first set up, two of the cameras didn’t show much action, but, on one camera we did see quite a few foxes and rabbits so we have an idea of one possible biodiversity hotspot on campus. And now in the next round, we'll set one up in that successful spot again, and then try and look for new locations that will work for the other two. It's an ongoing process.
How are you planning to build on the project this academic year?
Shortly after consolidation week, we are going to have a meeting where everyone's invited to kind of discuss the next locations for the trail cams. We will look at some maps and use any data that people have already found and see where the best spots would be we can put them in. Soon after that we will have another meeting where we put the cams in place and anyone who also wants to get involved with the physical kind of side of this project can come along and get involved with that.
Can any students get involved in your upcoming plans?
Of course! We will post about both the events on our Instagram, @creaturesoncampus, once we’ve got the dates confirmed.
What would your advice be to other students thinking of applying to the grant?
I would say just go for it because there's not really anything to lose. We came in with like a bunch of different kinds of ideas that we all had on the same application. But then through feedback, we were able to narrow it down and get it to be more of a targeted project. So, I’d say try and have a concrete idea in mind that you want to go for, but also just go for it at the end of the day because there's nothing to lose.
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If you’ve been inspired by Creatures on Campus, you can find out more about applying for your own funding.