Today, Dave went to check his cams as part of his ongoing camera trap project.
I get a call on my cell phone:
"Doc, bad news. Someone stole three of our cameras."
"You're &*$@ing kidding me??!!"
"Nope, they pried the security cases open and stole them."
"Sonova bleepity, bleeping, bleep!! Pull the rest. This project's over!"
Three RECONYX HC600 cameras. All of the lithium batteries (36 total). Three SD cards. And three security boxes. All stolen or ruined. All on private property. The landowners were all shocked and very unhappy. This is a fairly remote location. No random foot traffick. Someone had to have heard about this through the grapevine (maybe the landowners told someone, who told someone, who told the wrong person). They had to have come out there with a prybar looking for cameras (or they happened upon them and then came out looking for them later). They only found three....had they found all of them, they'd have stolen all of them.
So, nearly $2,000 gone because a some useless wastes of space couldn't keep their sticky fingers to themselves.
The worst is that Dave's project gets truncated. He's an undergraduate and has worked his backside off on this project.....searching and writting grants proposals to get money to purchase the cams....writting research proposals to the university......fighting the heat to service the cameras....spending hours organizing the tens of thousands of pictures.... And a coupla backwood yokel idiots do no work, and get all of the spoils.
I just hope that some day these useless idiots get what's coming to them!
Scum.
Here's what one of the cases looked like afterwards. Fairly good evidence that they don't hold up well to this type of attack.
My only consolation is that...maybe they either (1) hurt themselves during the process, (2) were bitten by a copperhead on the way out of the properties or (3) broke the cameras when breaking the boxes.
Jesus, that is terrible. They had to of known they were there and went specifically for them. You had been careful not to say exactly where any of your cameras were on the blog too. It is a real violation on private property too. On public land we know we are taking a risk but on private land it should be safe. Really rough for Dave
ReplyDeleteI will pour a little beer out for your cameras tonight.
That is disgusting. I hope they cut the heck out of their hands while destroying the boxes.
ReplyDeleteOh man. I know that feeling so very well. The thought that people would pry open the cases never even crossed my mind. In my big theft last year, they cut the cable locks...
ReplyDeleteOne of my stolen cams was a Reconyx. If you used a codeloc, I was told that you can alert Reconyx to be on the lookout for someone calling trying to find out how to change the code. I'm not exactly sure what they'd do then - but maybe they could pry an address or something out of the caller by offering to send them directions. I hadn't used the codeloc feature so I don't know any more about this option.
The other thing was that in CO, the police alerted pawn shops of the serial numbers and models to try to catch the thieves. Alas, since I really didn't think that my cams would be stolen, I didn't know the serial numbers... I'm hoping that you were more diligent than I was.
What jerks those thieves are!
I tell you, that just gets my blood boiling hearing about it. People who just think they can help themselves to anything they want just piss me off! Really sorry to hear about this:(
ReplyDeleteBill
Thanks, all! It was a huge downer!
ReplyDeleteStuff like this has a way of catching up with folks. Even if they don't get nailed for stealing my cameras....something will catch up with them some day. I can, at least, take comfort in that!