Trail Camera Safety Net

[hiflier]

Just had a thought. And this goes out to anyone who is fearful of Sasquatch when camping in the deep woods overnight. Other animals need not, and do not, apply- Only an eight foot tall hairy biped. When camping, place a trail cam or two around the perimeter of the campsite aiming back at the camp. Simple. Because since Sasquatch won't venture in front of one your camp, and you, should be quite safe from the beast. Might even be able to get a photo of the guy (or gal) who is hanging around outside of the circle that the two or three cams are monitoring. From everything that I read to date by all of the members and their thoughts on why there are no trail camera pics it would make sense that the best way to safeguard a camp from Bigfoot would be to turn the cameras toward the campfire, the tent...........and the privy

[hiflier]

There has to be some truth to the OP, right? Then also do what I suggested a couple of years back: Run a strong black thread around the camp (keeping the privy inside the circle of course) and attach a cowbell to it over a rock. When something breaks the thread the cowbell drops and DINGALING! One could even run the thread in consecutive segments with a bell at the end of each to better locate the source of the break. Run one line at about 2.5 feet high so that small animals don't trip it but a crab-walking Sasquatch would. Run another at around 5 feet to have something for a tall creature. Bears, Moose, Elk, and deer just might trigger these things but that's perfectly OK as one might wish to know when they are around as well. And then.......sleep like a baby. Until the BELL/BELLS sound off that is.

 

Humor is not only allowed here but it's encouraged and in some instances? May even be required  

[MIB]

That was part of my thinking that lead to my use of trail cameras.    Following the 2 consecutive nights with camp visits in 2011 decided I wanted trail cams to either build a buffer around my tent that'd give me a peaceful night's sleep or I'd have pictures of whatever was bothering me.   It was a good idea but I got distracted.   I'm up to 15 cameras now and have only placed a camera watching camp once.   "Something" happened that once.    There was something out there, it approached but stayed out of camera view, and it sounded ... irritated. 

 

Humor .. it is sort of "funny", i'm just not sure whether it is more ha-ha funny or more weird funny.   I guess they're not mutually exclusive.

 

MIB

[hiflier]

Oh, definitely 'weird' funny. What got me on this was the idea that placing cameras around a camp facing out would maybe ensure pretty much zero in the way of activity. But facing them in would not only keep the camp unmolested but also allow any creatures to option of approaching even if they wouldn't step in front of one of the cams. The tread/bell set up further out would alert one to an approach so that, even if one's night vision was blown out by a campfire, they would know something is out there. Might help for aiming either NV or therms in an approximate direction for media capture? If someone had several bells set up as mentioned then one of several manual camera traps could be triggered from camp.

 

Elaborate in the planning and execution? Sure is, but then again, we've had twenty years with this technology to pull this kind of thing off. I haven't done it but these ideas are making me think hard about it. s far as the thread/bell thing goes I always employ that. Just haven't been able to afford much beyond one trail cam and one low end piece of NV equipment. But I also think that ONE trail cam aimed at the camp like you did (still do?) would keep a BF out of the camp even if they were curious enough to be close by.  

[MIB]

I want to know HOW they detect cameras.   I don't have much doubt that they do.   I've noticed a few things with mine.

 

1) The "eye" that detects movement or heat changes has a dark cover that reflects red/orange if the light hits it just right.   

2) Using one I.R. camera to photograph the other so I can sort of see what they see, I notice that though hidden behind a dark lens / panel, the I.R. reflectors shine like polished aluminum in bright sun when seen with another I.R. cam, and the camo case is not very camo, it's just kind of dull OD green.

3) Though I can't hear it with the case shut, if I take a picture with the case open, I can hear the camera mechanisms operate.   Anything with more sensitive ears can probably hear them with the case closed.  (However, I have fewer pix of animals looking at my cameras than almost anyone I know ... for whatever reason.)

[hiflier]

Interesting and not very encouraging observation of the I.R. reflectors. I too have seen the red orange thing with the motion sensor eye. I have also wondered about the 'camo' finish from the factories and I've researched what folks have said in the past about ultrasound or infrasound emissions from the devices as well. As far as the sensitivity that animals have in certain light frequencies, their hearing, and their acute sense of smell- not to mention that the cameras look like an eye, it would seem that a lot has to go into getting cameras to 'disappear'

 

And then, too, in spite of all of that, they still do pick up bring home images of animals of all kinds. Maybe it animals that are more used to Human smells and sounds that don't mind the cams even though they detect them? It's always something to see a trophy buck staring directly at the camera, or a bear so there is something going on with these units. An oscilloscope that is set up to show infrasound or ultrasound would be handy. Disguising the camera with natural duff has been much discussed. Treating them with a UV inhibitor, painting them black or gray, and making sure they are otherwise weathered to reduce smells along with not handling then with bare hands have all been tried.

 

It does look as though your own research has shown you much and I guess the more we find out bout the cams the better. After they are constructed in such a way that we Humans don't detect anything obvious about their functioning. They seem quiet, unlit, camo'ed, and all in all pretty covert. It may just be that we need to know MORE about the sensitivity of animals? It's at least pretty obvious that we Humans are not so sensitive when it comes to what we deploy, thinking that these devices to animals are pure, invisible, stealth machines. Something that they may not be able to live up to in the more remote wild animal habitats. Sticking one inside of an existing squirrel's nest up off the ground would be about as unobtrusive as we could probably make them. 

[17x7]

Several years ago, somebody was posting about camouflaging cams elaborately.  They put them in piles of rocks so that they were mostly covered, or installed them inside of logs and such.  My favorite was one they hid in rotting logs so that the camera looked out of a knot hole.  I'm not sure if it worked or not, but it sure looked like it would.

 

17x7

[hiflier]

I saw similar applications that looked fairly 'natural'. It seems inconceivable that BF is so danged sensitive to these devices. I mean other animals are too but man, Sasquatch just seems to take it to a whole 'nuther level. So. Ya think cameras aimed at a campsite will keep Ol' Stinky away?

Edited July 28, 2017 by hiflier

[SWWASAS]

I would like to see some experiments run in an active area with the objective of figuring out how BF detects and avoids cameras.    If that can be determined through experimentation,   then cameras could be developed that are undetectable to them.   The most obvious thing with most game cameras deployment is that it is a plastic box strapped to a tree.    If someone hung one on a tree in my back yard I would detect it in seconds.     It should be pretty simple to find out if BF can see IR.    They shrink away from visible light like flashlights.   If they do the same from an IR flashlight,   we should be able to find out.    Would they see UV light as well?   I wonder about that as UV cameras are not common and unknown in game cameras.  . 

 

 Do they smell the plastic box?    Most likely.     If we can,   they do.   Humans are around so many strong artificial scents we have blown out or desensitized our scent detection cells.    If BF sense of smell is anything like a dog, they can smell us on the camera as well as all the plastic and electronics smell. .    Camera sound could be the culprit.     Game cameras have clocks.   Electronic clocks are basically electronic oscillators.    They generate an electronic signal and probably produce sound out of our range of hearing.    Ditch the clock circuit.    Who cares what time it was then the BF blundered by if you get the picture.    If any sound is generated by the camera at any point, that might be the problem.   Just the lens might be the problem.    No matter how well the camera is hidden, the lens has to be visible for it to take a picure.    Since the lens looks like an eye,   even if the BF does not know what a camera does, it might figure an eye watching it is not good. 

 

Perhaps take the camera out of this century.    No plastics, use a wood case.  No electronic trigger.     No IR motion detector.    Use a fine trip wire?   Make it look like something natural in nature.    The problem with this experimentation is that a very rare creature spread over large areas makes experimentation a very slow project.    What you deploy may do the trick but you would never know unless a BF blunders into it.  

[MIB]

I think the sign we leave going to and from a camera could be part of the equation.    If they are anywhere near as superlative at tracking as they are at stealth, they are likely to read our tracks in the forest as easily as we read a bear's tracks on an open sand bar.   If so, every time we go to our camera, we leave a "trail of crumbs" that attracts their attention to the exact spot we don't want them to look.   If our trails from numerous visits converge on a specific tree, they're going to look that tree over pretty carefully.   That makes it much harder than merely hiding a camera in a great big nondescript forest, we have to hide that camera on the particular tree they're looking at.   It raises the bar for hiding a camera a long, long ways.

 

I'm addressing that by only visiting my cameras once a year or so, at least for the ones that have capacity to store enough pictures and battery life to go with it.   I think the other situation that might offset that, if that's indeed what is happening, is high traffic areas that have a LOT of humans passing through to obfuscate the tracks going to and from the camera location.   That could be hiking trails, campgrounds, or habituation sites.

 

I think it might be possible to partially test this idea.    The best human trackers we probably have are US Border Patrol.   It would be interesting to see if they are able to more quickly locate trail cameras in the woods than run of the mill outdoors people.

 

MIB

[hiflier]

It does seem that animals will tolerate cameras placed in areas with higher Human presence. Our odors are already there plus the odors of the gear we haul in from tents to vehicles and their smells of plastics and fuels/exhaust along with perspiration, what we leave with the soles of our shoes etc. Dogs can find people days after a trail is left. If I walk out to my truck and then later take the dog out its nose is on the ground tugging me to my truck as it follows the scent I left earlier. And this is in a fairly high traffic area as it is summer and so he picked my path out of dozens of  others.

 

A test like what SWWASAS mentioned would be interesting. And I also agree on the clock thing. The 'eye' thing too. It could be that placing cameras in remote places actually works against us. Maybe the best thing is to place them in places that have more Human activity and focus on hiding them better from the Humans and forget about hiding them from Sasquatch as nothing seems to work in that regard anyway. Bigfoot activity does seem to be noticed more in places where people go like at campgrounds, state parks and forests, and other places that Humans frequent. Could be that's why Summer and Fall sightings are greater. Not only because there's more people but because Sasquatch is used to Human odors and so frequents those places where the people ARE.

 

So maybe we're going about this all wrong? High Sasquatch activity in a certain area is observed because people are there to witness it. That to me says something about them being already used to our smells and activities and so hiding trail cams from Human discovery may just be the only thing anyone has to worry about? People do say frequenting an area can have the advantage of Sasquatch get used to a visitor. It may be the reason habituation is successful if it does happen as people say.

Edited July 28, 2017 by hiflier

[7.62]

Sometimes I think if it was strapped to a branch horizontally  30 or 40 feet  pointing down to trigger anything walking under it  maybe  it might work better.

 

 

 

[hiflier]

Probably, 7.62, and some folks out there are placing cameras high and looking down instead of the usual positioning. But my point is that Sasquatch and other animals smell Humans and somehow know when the neighborhood has been entered. The follow up being that the more remote the location the more likely it may be that Sasquatch will steer clear of wherever a Human has placed a camera. In other words for a creature, any creature for that matter, that smells a Human, or whatever a Human left behind for scent, then they just may steer clear of an obvious Human track and the end of that track which is the camera location.

 

But animals, and maybe Sasquatch as well, who are in the vicinity of higher Human presence and intrusion may not distinguish a camera placement activity or presence fro the presence of other Human activity and incursions. An example would be the hunter that goes to the same tree stand year after year and then one years all of a sudden has a sighting. It almost makes me think that if hunters frequent an area then BF gets used to it. Almost as if the best place to place a camera would in the tree stand itself. If Sasquatch tolerates and comes close to a Human in a stand I see no reason why it wouldn't approach a tree stand with a camera in it.

 

I think Humans stand out like sore thumbs when in remote places and maybe they wouldn't so much if in a more pedestrian area?

[7.62]

I hear you hiflier

 

If it's just scent on the reason they avoid trailcams and not the IR I wonder if trailcams would work through a ziplock bag?

 

It would hide the scent of the plastic  camera and the scent of your hands touching it. The plastic bags really don't have a scent like processed hard plastic. To go a step even further I wonder how many people

have thought about scent when setting up the trailcams . Do they dress with a carbon suit , gloves and head gear? Wear rubber boots ?

 I'm referring to  more remote areas where there isn't any human traffic .

 

Do they have the nose of a deer or  even a more elevated sense of smell . I won't lie the trailcam thing  bugs me a lot .

We should be able to get them on it.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 29, 2017 by 7.62

[Twist]

If your trying to hide the scent of a trailcam with a baggie, aren't they going to smell the baggie?  Everything man made should be a trigger to them, or maybe just petroleum products.......

 

Yet they bang on house windows.  Enter camps and poke tents.  Leave handprints on cars and sliding doors.   Enter barns and or braid horse hair.....

 

BF, if real, is one crazy animal with an inherent lucky streak of avoiding detection! 

Edited July 29, 2017 by Twist