Wildlife Camera Traps

Ever wonder what's lurking in your backyard? Want to find out who's ripping up your flower bed or emptying your trash can? A camera trap might solve some of these mysteries. The first step is to pick out the right type of camera for you.

While you may get better quality pictures with a traditional film camera trap, the instant gratification and convenience of a digital camera trap may better suit your needs. There is a wide selection of digital camera traps to looks through. Some just take still photos, while others can be set to record video as well. I recommend reading the reviews from people that have bought them in the past, sometimes its work a few extra bucks to have a durable, reliable model that takes decent pictures. While much of the "action" happens at night, you also want to decide whether you want an infrared or a normal flash. The latter will give you true colors instead of grayscale, but may also spook the wildlife into avoiding the camera.

Once you've picked out a camera, the next step is to decide where to put it. Most traps mount easily to trees. I find I get the most action if I put the camera along a deer trail or on the boundary of 2 habitats, such as the edge of a field/woods. If you are going to put it somewhere where there are people, you may want to find a way to lock the camera so it cannot be stolen or tampered with. In placing the camera you also want to decide how high off the ground to put it. I find that placing the trap 2-3 inches off the ground (on a straight trunk) catches everything from chipmunks to deer. If you're targeting only large mammals you can put it higher up the tree to avoid having to go through 100 pictures of chipmunks and robins that trigger the camera by running right in front of it.

If you aren't getting much luck you can always bait the camera. I get all kinds of things, from opossums, squirrels, birds and deer when I leave birdseed out. Getting predators seems a little trickier. I got a fox by leaving a piece of venison out once. It was a big chunk of meat, any smaller meat such as cat food or dead mice/birds (NOT poisoned) would always be snatched up by the raccoons or opossum.

Regardless of the type of trap you get or how you decide to set it up, it's bound to be an eye-opener. You may never look at your backyard the same way again.