Native Californian, biologist, wildlife conservation consultant, retired Smithsonian scientist, father of two daughters, grandfather of four. INTJ. Believes nature is infinitely more interesting than shopping malls. Born 100 years too late.
One of the reasons I disappeared a few years ago was to find the time to finish this book. It's been finished for several months now. I've been too busy having fun to make a fuss about it. So here it is, my humble contribution to the science and practice of camera trapping. It is largely based on the lectures and exercises of my camera trapping workshop which was given for several years at San Francisco State University's Nevada field campus. Along the way, I had many camera trapping adventures, and these stories are contained in the sidebars (or text boxes, as some call them).
If you want to read some reviews or order a copy, here is the Amazon link. You can also order directly from the printer, BRG Scientific.
Many years ago the late Robert T Orr told me he had trapped flying squirrels at Sonora Pass in the Sierra Nevada. "I was trying to trap martens," he said, "but I kept getting flying squirrels. They were attracted to the meat I was using as bait." [Dr Orr was the curator of birds and mammals at the California Academy of Sciences and I was a teenager who hung around the museum.]
It is not uncommon for herbivores to deviate from their diet, especially when plant protein is low or pregnancy demands it. That's when innocent vegetarians like deer and rabbits shock us by dabbling in carnivory.
Carnivory probably also explains why Acorn Woodpeckers raise hell when adorable big-eyed Northern Flying Squirrels show up at their nest cavities. The squirrels are known to feed on eggs and nestling birds.
My goal to film acorn woodpeckers at their nest cavity was sidetracked when my trail camera recorded visiting flying squirrels. Rocky is such a photogenic charmer! I filmed "the pecker gang" for a year and a half on my neighbors' property, and eventually I recorded three hostile encounters with the inquisitive "Rocky". Such are the rewards of camera trapping! Have a look!
I am grateful to neighbors Ted and Judy -- the indulging hosts who made possible this little film and "Bruin Ate the Hornets' Nest".
This short video is Part 2 of the "The Hanging Jug". When I realized that this title may disappoint YouTubers seeking a different genre of entertainment, I gave this sequel a different title.
If you haven't seen Part 1, you missed out on the different ways various species reacted to the jug, and you don't know that bears won the curiosity contest. That is why I devoted this video just to bears.
With this video, I can scratch one camera trapping project from my bucket list. Some years ago I figured out that black bears hit the hornets' nests rather hard in late summer. The few nests that I found were a little too lively for camera trapping. I owe this adventure to my neighbor Ted seems to have a knack finding tame nests. Anyway, the video tells the story, and I hope you enjoy it.
Here's a new video showing how some of our common mammals reacted to an empty plastic detergent jug suspended over a game trail near our house.
I had a couple of reasons for doing this. One reason was to see if a harmless jug interested the critters as much as my trail cameras. I really don't think it did, except that the jug was suspended. This imbued it with movement, depending on the breeze and how the animals treated it. Have a look.
Watch this YouTube video production. It's about a vicious mountain lion attack on a man and a bear that saved his life. It happened here in Butte County fourteen years ago, so it's one of those stories that grew legs. The video was published less a month ago, and it's been viewed 320,000+ times, and 21,000+ viewers liked it.
I didn't believe the story. So I surfed the net, and learned that the event took place the last week of March, 2012. A week later at least fourteen media had published the story. Most of them tweaked the title but repeated the original account.
Reporters found Mr Biggs, a self acclaimed "naturist", to be a woodsy story teller. This was the third time he had been attacked by a mountain lion. He had also survived a dangerous fall in the canyon. He told the folks at Animals and our Changing Planet that he was almost 100% sure that the mama bear knew him and wanted to save his life. He had mingled with bears in the past and had high-fived a yearling cub while its mother looked on.
NBC news, Paradise Post, and SFGate questioned the story, noting that the Department of Fish and Game was "unable to substantiate the attack".
The game warden who interviewed Biggs and looked at his wounds, concluded the injuries were inconsistent with those inflicted by mountain lions. Biggs's confiscated back pack was subjected to forensic analysis and no bear or lion DNA was found. The case was too weak to justify the Department's culling of a mountain lion.
Other Doubting Thomases came forth from the blogosphere, including a jolly Aussie (GrahamandFriends) who spoofed the story while donning a happy bear cap.
SF Gate's Tom Stienstra reported it "was the biggest hoax pulled off in years - or the wildlife story of the century."
To wrap this up, I decided to sample a few YouTube videos about mountain lion and bear encounters. This raised even more questions. I conclude there is no shortage of nature fakers to entertain the gullible.
News Reports
https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/bear-saves-hiker-from-cougar-in-butte-county/ "Man Says Bear Saved Him From Mountain Lion Attack In Butte County" March 29, 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adi4Pm47Ins, "Man Attacked By Mountain Lion, Saved By Bear" KRCR7
@KRCR7
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/man-says-bear-stopped-lion-attack/ "Man Says Bear Stopped Lion Attack, CA man claims mountain lion retreated" March 29, 2012
https://kdvr.com/news/california-man-says-bear-saved-him-from-mountain-lion-attack/ "California man says bear saved him from mountain lion attack", by Richard J. Ortner, March 31, 2012
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/man-attacked-by-mountain-lion-saved-by-bear "Man Attacked by Mountain Lion, Saved by Bear" By Ashton Marra, March 29, 2012
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bear-saves-man-from-mountain-lion_n_1388219 "Bear Saves Robert Biggs From Mountain Lion Attack In California. AWESOME: Man Says Bear Saved Him From Mountain Lion Attack" By
Andy Campbell, Mar 29, 2012, Updated Dec 6, 2017
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/california-officials-mans-claim-bear-saved-him-lion-attack-not-flna605865
"California officials: Man's claim bear saved him from lion attack not substantiated" By U.S. News, March 30, 2012
https://www.petersenshunting.com/editorial/bear-saves-hiker-from-mountain-lion-attack/273176 "Bear Saves Hiker from Mountain Lion Attack" By Dylan Polk, April 2, 2012
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/man-attacked-by-mountain-lion-saved-by-bear "Man Attacked by Mountain Lion, Saved by Bear" By Ashton Marra, March 29, 2012
https://www.9news.com.au/world/bear-saves-man-from-mountain-lion/dda290f1-58c1-4a82-ab47-7f3058db96fc (Sydney, Australia)"Bear saves man from mountain lion" Mar 29, 2012
https://fox4kc.com/news/bear-saves-man-from-mountain-lion-attack/ "Bear Saves Man From Mountain Lion Attack" Michelle Pekarsky, Updated: March 30, 2012
https://news.yahoo.com/news/blogs/sideshow/man-saved-mountain-lion-bear-says-151626879.html "Man saved from mountain lion by bear, he says. By Dylan Stableford, March 29, 2012
https://www.news.com.au/world/bear-saves-california-hiker-from-mountain-lion-attack/news-story/2ca7e0ab37ccc17c646abe6e8d2ac5d4 (Australia) "Bear saves California hiker from mountain lion attack" March 29, 2012
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/man-claims-a-bear-saved-him-from-mountain-lion-attack.1351469/ "Man claims a bear saved him from mountain lion attack" By MacNut, March 31, 2012 (Community Discussion)
https://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/attacked-by-a-lion-saved-by-a-bear-is-it-true-3450540.php "Attacked by a lion, saved by a bear - is it true?" Tom Stienstra, Outdoors Writer, April 1, 2012
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpu71l "Bear Saves Man From Mountain Lion!!!" (Video Spoof by GrahamandFriends)
https://theworld.org/stories/2016/07/31/robert-biggs-man-attacked-mountain-lion-and-saved-bear-video "Robert Biggs, the man attacked by a mountain lion and saved by a bear (Video)" NewsDesk, July 31, 2016
https://www.paradisepost.com/2012/03/29/ridge-man-sticks-by-story-despite-fish-and-game-skepticism/ Ridge man sticks by story, despite Fish and Game skepticism. Paradise Post, By Trevor Warner, Updated May 16, 2018
Video Productions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxtkIzCzdH0 Bear Saves Man from Cougar, Real Facts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxtkIzCzdH0, Bear Saves Man from Mountain Lion, THe World@theworld549 (video short in Asian language)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vPKG0KDfaw, Mountain Lion Horribly Mauls Robert Biggs But Then This Bear Arrives, Fierce@Fierce.official
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZzllN7jPVI, Bear saves California man from mountain lion attack219, Julienne Buse (animation video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN0G0urSXZ0, Bear saved Robert Biggs' life while being MAULED alive by Mountain Lion, Wildlife@animalstorytelling (this video refutes Biggs's claims)
I hope you enjoy this video showing coyotes encountering trail cameras. You'll see they don't all act in the same way. Sometimes they don't see the camera, or at least they act like they don't see it. At other times their body language screams "get me out of here".
As I edited and studied these clips I always thought there's more here than meets the eye. Deciphering behavior is an enlightening part of our addictive hobby. As our subjects ponder their camera encounters we have to wonder about their thoughts. Sometimes their actions tell us exactly how they feel.
Ever since the Paradise Fire in 2018 my neighbors and I have been cutting down trees to make our property more "fire-safe". Some of those trees contained cavities, which are often a limited commodity for hole-nesting birds and small mammals. My neighbor Ted and I rehabilitated a fallen nest cavity in December 2021. Getting a 20 lb chunk of log up into a tree is not a big deal if have a front-end loader and a master heavy equipment operator like Ted, and a camera trapper who isn't acrophobic, like yours truly.
We bolted that nest hole log 16 feet up on a live oak tree and set a couple of trail cameras. After 3 years we had accumulated 2,221 video clips of animals. Acorn woodpeckers were the undisputed camera hogs, but there were cameo appearances by flying squirrels, western gray squirrels, and several species of birds.
This video shows how the project got sidetracked, and gave me an excuse to snoop on woodpeckers using a homemade nest cavity with a built-in camera.
At last a new video. I have wanted to make this movie for a long time. Ever since I started camera trapping here "on the ridge", black bears have toyed with my cameras. The clips have accumulated over the years. The film is a record of the ways bears have photo-bombed my videos.
