Trail cameras are popular to capture wildlife and to keep an eye out for the intruders on your property. But how do you know that your cameras are safe?
You can become a victim of theft and vandalism if your cameras are visible to the human eye. Thus, the big question is how to hide your trail cameras from humans.
Ways To Hide Your Trail Cameras
You can follow these seven tricks to conceal your trail cams from the intruders;
1. Place Cameras On Height
Well, common sense says that if you can reach your camera easily, so can your intruders. Based on this fact, we suggest you place your cameras on elevated levels.
Taking a walk in the woods is not easy; you are always looking down to ensure you do not trip on something, so there are low chances of anyone spotting a camera above their eye level.
Moreover, even if someone does spot the camera, no one is roaming around with a ladder in the woods to reach it, so it is unlikely that someone will make that much effort to steal your trail cam.
This technique might also benefit you in another way. Placing the camera on elevated levels will also increase the range of pictures your camera captures, giving you even more beautiful shots.
2. Camouflage Your Camera
Trail cameras mostly come in green color so they can blend in the natural environment. But, even with their green leafy color, it is still not that hard to find them.
Therefore, camouflaging your camera is a crucial step. You can use fake leaves and bushes to conceal your cameras. You can get fake leaves easily from a crafts shop and super glue them to the exterior of your camera.
Additionally, you can place a large sticks or broken branches on the sides or top of the camera, or you can grow vines around it. In doing so, avoid accidentally covering your lens in the process.
3. Use Cameras With No-Glow Infrared Technology
We would be lucky if our intruders were only to come during the day because our camera’s flash would not go on.
But that is not the case as cameras produce a bright white flash or use red infrared to help them when visibility is low, which can give away your camera’s location to intruders very easily and even spook away animals.
Nowadays, new cameras with “black flash” or “no glow” technology are available on the market; they use an infrared range in low visibility, producing no visible flash.
These cameras can surely be a little more expensive than the others on the market, but having your cameras stolen every other day would cost you more.
4. Avoid Placing Cameras In High Footfall Areas
Your camera has two purposes, one to keep an eye on people roaming around on your property, secondly to keep an eye on the wildlife.
For the first purpose your camera must point towards the high traffic area, but it does not mean that it must be placed there. You can attach your camera in a low traffic area on some height and point it to the area you want.
Other than this, if you are in the woods, you would choose the easier path to walk on, so you should place your camera in tough spots such as between thorny bushes or trees, so it is hard for them to reach as well.
For your second purpose, animals usually avoid the places where they might encounter human beings so you would get better shots by placing your camera in places where no one goes.
5. Place Dummy Cameras
Another way to deal with this issue is to trick the intruders.
You should buy dummy cameras which can be cheap, low-quality ones, or even those that do not work, and place them in areas where they can be found easily but not that obvious that it looks stupid.
Intruders thinking they found the cameras will give little attention to the other areas where your actual cameras are in place.
6. Cloak Your Camera as a Decoration
Other than camouflaging your camera in the environment, another good tip is to disguise your camera as different decorations placed on your property.
Sometimes we tend to overlook the simplest things in front of us; keeping this in mind, we suggest you disguise your cameras as birdhouses or fake rocks.
Another place to hide your camera is between old stumps, as big old stumps will properly conceal the camera in nature.
7. More Tips
After all these things, you should try to avoid going to the spot where the camera is located, as if anyone is scouting out your property, they would know the location very easily.
You should visit your cameras very discretely and only when it is important. Secondly, you should use small-sized cameras, so they are easy to hide from everyone.
Moreover, It is best if as few people as possible know where your trail camera is, so keep the location private.
Lastly, you should clear the paths of any foot marks that are leading towards the camera because obvious footprints in the mud or snow will just lead intruders right to your cameras without any trouble at all.
How to Protect Your Cameras From Intruders
Another question that arises at this point is that even after following all the tips mentioned above, what happens if intruders still find your cameras?
Well, do not worry, as we will be explaining how to protect your cameras in case, they are found by anyone other than you.
Firstly, you should buy python cable locks to lock your cameras; they have a tightening locking system that secure your cameras.
Moving on, mounting boxes are now available on the market. These protective boxes would safely lock your cameras inside, and if you attach a python lock around them, no thief in the world can take your camera from you.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you do not want to get frustrated by having your cameras stolen every other day, you should try following the tips we have explained in this article. With the ways above, there is low probability of something bad happening to your cameras.
Just remember to place your cameras in elevated positions, away from crowded areas, and fully camouflaged in nature.
Other than this, invest in black flash and no glow camera technology so your cameras can stay hidden at night.
Moreover, place dummy cameras to confuse the intruders, clear the path to your camera of any footprints, use small-sized cameras, and lastly try to disguise your camera in simple nature like in fake rocks, old stumps, or birdhouses.
However, if you still fail to hide your cameras after all this demanding work. You can use mounting boxes, brackets, and python cable locks to help keep your cameras safe and secure.