Setting up a trail camera is a great way to see activity around your trap. You may be surprised that squirrels are not the only animals checking out your bait!
You can buy specialized motion-activated trail cameras on Amazon for anywhere between $100 to $300.
Why buy them?
I find these cameras to be a great educational tool. When setting one up next to a squirrel trap, you can see the squirrel’s behavior in its natural habitat free from human interference.
For example, I have seen squirrels stretch their body to reach into the trap, only to back out and eat the nut on top of the trap. This indicates that the squirrels are wary of the trap as they should be.
One time, my trap even caught a mouse! Unfortunately, the mouse squeezed its way out of the holes in the trap after about 10 minutes of struggling. Had I not had the trail camera, I would not have known about the mouse at all.
What to look for
At a bare minimum the trail camera should be:
- Rechargeable, either with lithium ion batteries or direct USB charging
- Motion-activated
- Support day and night vision, the latter usually through infrared
- High resolution, at least 1080P
Some nice features to have:
- Live streaming via Wifi or Bluetooth
- Auto-upload to the cloud
- AI recognition (e.g. animal vs human vs vehicle vs general motion)