JON'S JOURNAL: Wild Woolsery

Yesterday Neil Arnold made this comment to my post JON'S JOURNAL: The latest trailcam results

"Guys, if you're going to set up a trigger cam you MUST leave it in the same area for months at a time. Frequent visits to the camera will leave a scent that a cat would detect. It's a good idea to set cameras up relatively high, overlooking a game trail, because it's unlikely a cat will just walk up to a cam only two-feet off the ground. We've also found that the infra-red puts certain animals off - this was proven in Africa with a melanistic leopard that never seemed to come within 200 yards of the camera yet was seen on thermal imaging. If you're getting fox, deer etc, on the camera then that's a good start,as there's prey in the area but too many people keep moving there cam's out of frustration and this isn't the way forward".

He is - of course - perfectly correct. But we are not actually setting the trail cams predominantly to look for big cats. If we got a picture of one we would be overjoyed, but for starters we are trying to get a picture of what known species of animals are in the areas where we are carrying out investigations. This is partly so we can liaise with local landowners, and partly for a book project Wild Woolsery which will be aimed at the local kids.

We only have the four cameras at the moment, so are having to move them about. When we have more, some will be left in the field for three-six months...