Trail cameras can double as security devices, residents find

[Go Big Red!]

By Cara Spoto • For Wisconsinoutdoorfun.com • February 20, 2011

AMHERST -- Burt Benjamin never fancied himself much of a detective.

But when logs started disappearing from the woodpile at his village of Amherst home in August, the avid bear hunter had an idea.

Benjamin, 72, went up north to his cabin and grabbed one of the trail cameras he uses to monitor what types of bears visit his bait stations.

He pointed the heavy-duty, motion-sensitive digital camera toward the pile, making sure to camouflage it, and waited.

Two months later, he got his first break in the case.

The first images, snapped after dark, showed only the headlights of a vehicle, but a few days later, the culprit came back in daylight hours. Although the license plate on the car was out of range, the camera manage to get a photo or two of the person's face.

Benjamin showed the photos to a neighbor who he thought might know the thief and, sure enough, the thefts stopped.

"I don't know if it was a coincidence or not," he said, "but the wood stopped disappearing after that."

Benjamin's story might sound unique, but officials at central Wisconsin sheriff's departments say trail cameras are becoming a popular security tool for rural residents.

Kellner-area resident Carol Burrows put up a trail camera last fall, hoping to figure out what animal had been digging holes in her backyard.

When the camera snapped "a beautiful picture of a skunk," Burrows' son moved the camera to a tree facing the front of her rural home, so he could get images of deer visiting his mother's bird feeder.

A few weeks later, that camera took a video, but not of a deer. Taken at night, the video showed a man walking around Burrows' home and peering into windows.

Burrows, 68, was pretty shaken by the footage, calling it "spooky."

Burrows and her son decided to leave the camera up, and almost a month later, it took pictures of the same person.

Burrows took a still shot from that last video and showed it to neighbors and deputies with the Wood County Sheriff's Department. The department hasn't figured out who the person is, but the incident has persuaded some of her neighbors to put up game cameras of their own.

While trail cameras do accidentally capture footage of illegal activity, Randy Dorshorst, chief deputy with the Wood County Sheriff's Department, said there are just as many people, like Benjamin, putting out the cameras on purpose.

Higher end trail cameras can cost upward of $300, but most run around $100, making them an affordable alternative to surveillance systems that can cost thousands of dollars, Dorshorst said.

"It is becoming very popular," he said,. "Some (residents) are even asking for suggestions on how to use them (for security). I would say the trend started in the last year, year and a half."

Dorshorst doesn't see anything wrong with using the cameras to protect property. In fact, he sees cameras as a possible deterrent for would-be thieves interested in pilfering rural property. However, even trail cameras are stolen sometimes.

Dan Kontos, a Portage County Sheriff's Department chief deputy, agrees and says, like Wood County residents, Portage County residents increasingly are using the devices to protect their homes and belongings.

"Every once in a while, we will have people come in and say, 'Here are pictures of people who have been trespassing on my property,'" Kontos said. "I think it is a good way to use off-the-shelf technology to protect one's property. A lot of the cameras are infrared now, so they will take pictures in almost complete darkness, and (the perpetrator) won't even know."