Sunday, October 25, 2009

Camera Trapping Project Scrapped...For Now

I went out this afternoon to try to service two of the game cameras I have out here in Central Texas. It was a disappointing day. I went to take care of Camera #2 but discovered it was gone. I guess somebody came across it and decided to take it. I am a bit surprised as it was in a spot up on a bluff that is not too easy to access. However, in hindsight, it was just too close to an area where people hike and fish. Lesson learned.

I then proceeded to the other side of the county to check on Camera #3. This is the camera I feared had been stolen when I could not locate it last weekend. I remembered to bring my GPS unit this time and was able to locate the camera. Much to my chagrin, it had malfunctioned and would not operate properly. So, out of five cameras I had out, or intended to put out, in the field three are now broken, one has been stolen, and one just does not seem to take pictures of anything but scenery. I was quite bummed out but not too surprised. After all, these cameras were old 35mm dinosaurs with painfully slow trigger speeds. It would have taken a tremendous amount of luck to capture a big cat on film with these old cameras. So, it appears my camera-trapping project will have to be scrapped for the time being. I will have to begin the process of saving up for some higher quality digital cameras with quicker trigger speeds.

The news was not all bad today. I actually had quite an interesting and amazing, to me anyway, experience while out in the field. I will write about that very soon.

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