Chip Burgess set up trail cameras on Heart Mountain in Park County to scout elk where he and his wife planned to hunt, but he was also stoked to get photos of the mountain’s notorious grizzlies.
“Mostly, I just wanted pictures of the bears,” Burgess told Cowboy State Daily, recounting how he set up several cameras on the mountain in September.
One camera was set up near a trail where he’d found numerous grizzly tracks. So, he was especially excited to hike in and check that camera a few days ago.
He knew something was wrong as he approached the camera and noticed its indicator lights were off.
“I thought, ‘Oh, great, some jerk turned my camera off,’” he said.
Then he opened the camera and discovered somebody had stolen the SD, or memory card, with a month’s worth of photos on it.
He said it infuriated him, and also was baffling. Why would somebody go through all the trouble of opening the camera and swiping the card?
“I’m actually surprised that they didn’t just steal the entire camera,” he said.
“They either just wanted a free SD card, or maybe they just wanted the bear pictures for themselves,” he added.
Preparing For An Elk Hunt
Burgess lives near Heart Mountain. He owns Wyoming Upland Outfitters and takes clients on game-bird hunting trips.
He and his wife also set aside time to do their own hunting. This year, they both have tags for Elk Hunt Area 65, with rifle season opening this week.
It includes the Heart Mountain Hunter Management Area, where hunters can access rugged enrolled lands with the required permission slip and vehicle pass.
Burgess has a cow elk tag, and his wife has a bull tag.
So, they hoped setting out a few game cameras in the HMA would help determine if there are any trophy-sized bull elk around.
Trail cameras are motion-activated, meaning they start snapping photos if an animal passes close by. Many hunters consider game cameras to be a valuable scouting tool.
Wyoming Game and Fish Commission regulations prohibit the use of real-time video photography equipment to help locate and take big game. Trail cameras that store images on the device without transmitting them through cellular or Wi-Fi technology are allowed.
It’s considered to be unethical because it's essentially cheating by giving away an animal’s exact location in real time.
Instead, hunters are expected to physically check their cameras, getting photos after the fact.
How Many Bears?
Burgess also wants to know more about the local grizzlies.
As grizzlies have pushed beyond core habitat in Yellowstone National Park and on the Shoshone National Forest, Heart Mountain has become a hot spot for bears.
Burgess knew there was at least one female grizzly in the area they planned to hunt elk.
“And I saw tracks of at least one cub, maybe two,” he said.
“With a sow and cubs around, you would think there must be a boar (male) up there too,” he added.
‘Scum People’
Two other avid Wyoming hunters told Cowboy State Daily they’ve had similar experiences with game cameras.
"I’ve had a few tampered with, but in general I try to put them in not-so-obvious places,” Olin Machen of Cody said. “The cameras and SDs are cheap enough now that even if a not-so-honest person comes across them, it’s not that big of a deal. At the end of the day it is public land, honest and ethical or not.
“Bears destroy way more (cameras) than scum people do."
Northeast Wyoming resident Owen Miller said somebody was tampering with one of his game cameras “a few years back.”
“They'd pull the card and then put it back in, but not all the way, so it wasn’t taking photos,” he said. “I set a bait camera and hid another one by it and got photos of them messing with the bait camera.”
It turned out to be somebody he knew, so he let slide.
He said that some newer cameras come with a built-in tracking device, “so you can trace it to wherever thieves take it, so long as the battery is good,” he said.
Four Miles In
A camera next to the trail with grizzly tracks would have been relatively easy to find, Burgess said.
“One of the cameras was in an obvious spot. The others are way back in places that you would have a hard time finding,” Burgess said.
But even the camera in the “obvious spot” wouldn’t have been all that easy to access.
It was roughly four miles from the trailhead, Burgess said.
The area is also supposed to have limited access.
“I was especially surprised that something like this happened in the Heart Mountain HMA. It’s a place where you have to sign in at the trailhead. Or at least you're supposed to sign in. And you’re not supposed to go in there unless you have a hunting tag for it,” he said.
That might narrow the field of suspects, but Burgess said he’s not holding out much hope he’ll catch the thief or get back his memory card that probably has cool bear pictures on it.
The incident hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for the hunt, though.
“I’m confident we’ll harvest a quality bull elk,” Burgess said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
