Using a 3D Printer to Fight Gear Thieves

The “Perfect Crime” 

Recently, I had a trail camera stolen. It was a clean sweep – I lost a cellular-enabled Spypoint Mico Link LTE, so I hoped I would eventually get a picture of the thief, but no luck. I had my camera settings adjusted to upload pictures once a day, and the thief (probably by pure luck, maybe through skill and audacity) managed to lift the camera in between upload times.  Lesson #1 right there – I’ve since changed all my camera setting to upload immediately upon detection. While this will drain batteries faster, fresh batteries are cheaper than new cameras.

The thief also had a hacksaw or bolt cutters, since my camera was securely fastened to the tree with a Masterlock Python™ adjustable locking cable, which is one of the best locking system for game cameras:

Who Steals Trail Cameras?

There are two types of dastardly people who snatch trail cameras. The first are cheap low-lifes who want a free camera or hope to sell the camera to make a quick buck. The second are people caught doing embarrassing things who want to hide the evidence.

My thief was probably the later. I reported my camera stolen to Spypoint, and they provided great customer service during this incident. My camera is now logged in their system as stolen. I can still monitor it on my profile, and I see that nobody’s activated it. If anyone ever does activate it, Spypoint can provide details about the thief’s IP address and location to law enforcement. That’s right, camera thieves – stealing cellular trail cameras doesn’t pay. If you ever try to use them yourselves, or sell them, they will be immediately tracked back to you. Spypoint has a great post on their Facebook page about what to do if your camera is stolen, along with a feel-good story about justice served and a camera returned:

Since my thief hasn’t attempted to activate my camera months later, I assume their goal was simply to destroy the evidence that they were there, doing whatever they had been doing. My camera had been on private, posted land where I have permission to hunt, so perhaps the thief realized they’d been caught trespassing and wanted to avoid prosecution.

Tactics for Gear Loss Prevention

Afterwards, I got to thinking about how to prevent cameras from getting stolen. There’s a number of good strategies to go above and beyond simply locking it to a tree, including:

• Camouflage the camera better — use natural leaves and branches, being careful that no waving materials are in front of the camera to trigger false detections. Avoid black camera straps that are often a dead give-away.
• Use a ladder to place the camera above head height making it difficult for a thief to reach it.
• If your camera is on private land that you own or have permission to do so, put up “Camera warning” signs 20 yards or so away from your camera. This will warn humans that cameras are in use, and this is usually enough to deter sketchy folks from coming close. Also, it will prevent someone from accidentally doing something embarrassing on camera, and then feeling like they need to destroy the evidence.

Security for Dummies

Another strategy is to put up “dummy cameras” to distract and confuse thieves. On private land, these can be used to make the property look more secure, just like how department stores will often use fake security cameras to deter theft.

From a security perspective, dummy cameras can be a part of a security solution — but only if they are used in conjunction with real cameras. If you only use dummy cameras to deter illegal activity, eventually someone will find out, and then you’ve signaled to the world that your security is a sham.

When used in conjunction with real cameras, the best practice for dummy cameras is to put them somewhere open and obvious, with a more concealed real camera monitoring the area. If an honest person comes into the area and sees your dummy camera, they’ll probably just wave at it, or give it wide berth. If an unscrupulous person approaches, the obviously placed dummy camera might scare them off. If they do try to steal it, your real camera will record the whole thing.

While there’s a number of convincing-looking dummy security cameras available online, most of these would be completely out of place in the woods (a wire running into a tree and a little blinking light? C’mon).

You can usually find broken trail cameras on Ebay that can be used as dummies for about $20, but I decided to try something else.

The Three Dimensional Strategy 

Since I have a 3D printer, I decided to see if I could make an authentic-looking dummy camera. Using drafting software, I made a mock-up of a cellular trail camera and printed it off. After painting, it looked pretty good:

If you have a 3D printer and are looking for a cheap dummy camera, you can download my STL file from Thingiverse. Obviously, it’s nothing like the real thing, which is intentional for intellectual property reasons:

However, from 5 yards away, the blatant fakeness begins to fade.

Also, I’m counting on science and psychology to work in my favor, as the human brain is good at filling in details and altering perception to match expectation.

Working with the landowner (who happily shared my concerns about trespassing and gear theft), I installed my “Fakepoint” in an obvious position, but about twelve feet up off the ground so nobody can get close and have a good look at it:

I placed a “Cameras in use” sign along the trail leading up to it, and I’ve got real cameras in place as well in case trespassers ignore the signs and try to get at my fake camera.

In Conclusion

If you’ve ever had a camera stolen, you’ve probably also spent a lot of time thinking about how to prevent this from happening again. Dummy cameras, depending on your situation, may be a useful tool in your overall security plan for preventing gear theft.

So far, my multi-layered security approach seems to be working. Things have been peaceful, I’ve been able to stop worrying about camera thieves, and I can go back to watching this guy: