Avoiding Human Contact? Or Not?

[Catmandoo]

Game cams and the mounting hardware are difficult to conceal.

First off, there is a reoccurring belief that there is infrared light at night. False. There is no, repeat no infrared light at night. We have known this since about half way through the previous century. No infrared light at night. There are no animals on this planet that have infrared vision. Not all animals have trichromatic vision like humans. We see red at the high end. Sasquatch may see red. Period.

Game cams and mounting hardware can absorb smells. Olfactory signaling can be very bad for your presentation.

The worst aspect is noise, both audible and electronic. Some have filter holders that slap back and forth. The loudest is the ultrasonic noise from operation and especially the capacitors during charging and release for the flash. The ultrasonic noise pattern can be considered as 'spherical projection' type.

Some have LEDs that flash when you arm the camera. A mis-aligned filter over the LED board will 'leak' light.

A huge problem area is with magnetic fields. Magnetic fields at the batteries are a favorite homestead area for spiders and the like. Biggest problem is the switching regulated power supply. It produces fluctuating DC and AC magnetic fields. We were advised about the power supply many years ago. Few payed attention.

They are very noisy boxes. Not easy to deal with.

[Guest]

 

There are as many or more daytime sightings as nighttime. .

 

 

From... http://www.bfro.net/REF/THEORIES/WHF/FahrenbachArticle.htm

 

The nocturnality of the Sasquatch has been questioned on occasion. This subject can also be approached statistically, though directed at the observers rather than the observed. Let us take a hypothetical area randomly seeded with Sasquatches, evenly distributed during day and night. Their apparent temporal distribution will depend on them being seen by human observers. Let us assume a very conservative ratio of such alert observers during day­light as compared to the hours of total darkness in the mountains to be 20:1. A daylight observer will have a circular observational area with a radius of, say, 500 feet (152 m);recognition of the subject will thus be unambig­uous over roughly 800,000² feet (72,000² m).A night-time observer has, at best, the expanding cone of headlights in one direction with recognition of a grey object at 300 feet (91 m) (Bosch 1970), and an expanding width of illumination to 100 feet (30 m) a sector with an area of about 15,000² feet (1,350² m). Factoring in the number of observers produces a ratio of 800,000 x 20:15,000 x1, or better than 1,000:1. That is the ratio at which Sasquatch sightings should be distributed between day and night, a number that will get more extreme if flashlights or moonlight is the alternative illumination. An actual ratio cited by Green (1978) consists of 1,275 sightings, of which 735 occurred during the day and 540 during the night, or a 58 to 42 ratio (1.38 to 1). If only sightings on roads are considered, the ratio shifts to 1:1.4 in favor of night sightings. This discrepancy can be interpreted as activity by the Sasquatch that exposes it to being seen about 1,500 times more often at night than an even distribution would predict. This nocturnality would render the elaborate body language common to primates invisible most of the time, and might account for a compensatory development of more com­plex vocalizations in the Sasquatch.

 

But yah, I've always wanted to get away from gamecams and modify Canon digicams into birdhouses and hollow logs, with huuuuuge battery packs, and use the CHDK firmware for image based motion detection (passive). Let me tell you though, those cams are hard to come by cheap second hand, I thought tons would be dumped by now, but people seem to keep hold of them... well that's the local market, guess I could be getting them in eBay.

[Twist]

Bigtreewalker, while I respect your opinion we will have to agree to disagree. Not only are Bigfoot known to come around other human devices they are also known to accept "gifts" that people leave for them. They don't seem to notice or care about bright car lights driving by, they are sometimes oblivious enough in the woods to be found by people riding four wheelers. If the camera flash is scaring them off, haven't they already walked upon the camera. Bigfoot is going to be a flesh and blood animal if discovered. I don't think this thing is going to be as much a ninja of the woods as people think. I think it is either a social construct or is an animal that has very low population and sticks to remote locations. That is the number one reason IMO we do not have a trail cam pic, they are not in the same place as the cams.

[BigTreeWalker]

There was a discussion somewhere here on the forum and the ratio in the SSR data base was about 50/50 for night and day sightings. Sorry if I am wrong about that. The only point I was trying to make there is that our chances are just as good during the day.

Catmando, "First off, there is a reoccurring belief that there is infrared light at night. False. There is no, repeat no infrared light at night. We have known this since about half way through the previous century."

Don't really know what you are trying to say here. That's a pretty adamant statement. Especially since IR is definitely light. Do we even know for sure which animals can see into the infrared spectrum. Please give some links. I've watched raccoons play in the light of my IR cameras, using the light to hunt for items on the ground in front of the camera. That whole list of items you gave, I guess is the reason why cameras are so apparent then.

But if what I said doesn't have any truth to it then I guess it should just be business as usual and don't bother trying to figure out a better way.

[Guest]

Game cams and the mounting hardware are difficult to conceal. First off, there is a reoccurring belief that there is infrared light at night. False. There is no, repeat no infrared light at night. We have known this since about half way through the previous century. No infrared light at night. There are no animals on this planet that have infrared vision. Not all animals have trichromatic vision like humans. We see red at the high end. Sasquatch may see red. Period. Game cams and mounting hardware can absorb smells. Olfactory signaling can be very bad for your presentation. The worst aspect is noise, both audible and electronic. Some have filter holders that slap back and forth. The loudest is the ultrasonic noise from operation and especially the capacitors during charging and release for the flash. The ultrasonic noise pattern can be considered as 'spherical projection' type. Some have LEDs that flash when you arm the camera. A mis-aligned filter over the LED board will 'leak' light. A huge problem area is with magnetic fields. Magnetic fields at the batteries are a favorite homestead area for spiders and the like. Biggest problem is the switching regulated power supply. It produces fluctuating DC and AC magnetic fields. We were advised about the power supply many years ago. Few payed attention. They are very noisy boxes. Not easy to deal with.

 

Also comes to mind that these things are on standby until they detect something, then the rest of the electronics power up. I wonder if it's the change in E-M, rather than the existance of E-M that would make anything E-M sensitive wary. Even, if you disconnected all the voltage convertors, and had cells for each voltage required, the DC pulse as the demand changed would create an E-M fluctuation. This is why I wonder sometimes whether multicamera surveillance systems with a central box that does motion detection and capture, would work better than game cams. Although it's power requirements would be bigger and it would have to be hidden somewhere with something like a marine battery.... it could however, be some way from where the cameras are, and not prompt avoidance of actual cameras.

[Guest]

I just thought of something... we expect BF to be a BIG thermal blob right? What if they always trigger game cams early, outside of range? and the PIR sensors get more tweaky the colder it is. Dunno if they know a camera flash from a muzzle flash but would probably back away from either. (Yeah they should be used to lightning, but a camera flash is a point source)

 

I have not seen one with tuneable sensitivity, but have seen PIR security lights like that. I'm thinking, if available, I'd want to tune them so they only just trigger on a human walking close, like 10ft.

[Guest DWA]

^^^^Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand there's another unknown.

But they are known to approach other human devices. Houses, cars, campsites etc...I could see them messing with one if observed in their territory but I have a hard time believing they'd avoid it based on the fact it's human made.

One possible answer to this is that they - animals in general - may not approach something that is either out of place or new to them.  When a house has been there a while, or after a few months of watching people come in and out of campsites, they might get more comfortable with those things and approach them.  When it comes to camera traps though, this is just another unknown.  We know that alpha coyotes on territory will avoid them.  But I don't know how long that study went.

[Twist]

That is a possibility. I just think a stray Bigfoot would eventually happen by one, and, as has been stated by many here, could have already and not recognized or released. The possibilities are endless!!!!

[Guest DWA]

I just really don't like The Argument From Camera Traps when it comes to being skeptical about this.  There are too many reasons why we don't have a universally recognized Bigfoot Photo from a trap cam.

[SWWASAS]

We seem to have two choices with relation to game cameras and BF. One is that the skeptics are right and BF does not exist. Or the other is that BF either knows what they are and avoid s them or views them as some sort of strange human gadget that might be a threat. Cougars are fairly rare and not often seen in the wild, but cougar pictures are often gotten on game cameras, so that is evidence that suggests to me that BF avoids them for some reason. The reason has to be determined and addressed or eliminated for there to be any success. DWA addresses one possibility. Hanging out on a tree in the middle of the woods a game camera is alien to the environment and out of place. But a camera hidden in the human clutter of human gadgets in and around a house may not be very obvious. We cannot expect that bigfoot knows what a toaster does or can tell the difference between a hidden camera on the porch and something like an outdoor speaker. It would all be alien to them. So maybe a habituation situation in a rural house would have more chance of success than a camera on a tree way out in the woods.

Edited November 24, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Twist]

I'd say a third option is that there is a very small population that resides in the US and with such a small population the odds are slim to none one is caught on cam.

[scottv]

Why would the population be so small or sasquatch so rare?

[norseman]

Why are Grizzly Bear rare?

[scottv]

Over hunting over a 150 year period or so. this would not be the case with sasquatch because we'd have a body, skin or skull.

[Twist]

That's a good question scottv, some possible reasons could be:

 

They are nomadic creatures that could spend a lot of time alone and maybe finding a mate would be rare.  What if they only allowed one breeding male per group.  Males that are pushed out could search for a long time looking for female squatch and possibly die off before mating.  Elephant seals only allow one dominant male per group the other males are not allowed to breed and in African wild dogs, only the female is allowed to have pups. 

 

The small population could be kept in check by a lack of genetic diversity.   This could cause anything from birth defects preventing young squatch to survive or possibly cause infertility. 

 

Could also be the introduction of new diseases.  Could have happened thousand of years ago and the population never rebounded.  Perhaps the first people to the Americas as we know them infected the BF population similar to Europeans infecting Native Americans. 

 

Just a few ideas......I'd love to hear your thoughts.