From the November 3, 2007 issue of The Cape Cod Times

School's camera swiped in woods

By Robin Lord
STAFF WRITER

Members of the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School's Bird and Nature Club have been waiting for three years to get a photo of an elusive fisher on the infrared camera they set up in the woods.

Now they are hoping to catch a thief.

The $600, 35-millimeter camera was taken from a stand off Lower Road in Brewster sometime between Oct. 20 and Oct. 25, according to faculty club leader Peter Trull. The camera, which was bought with grant money from Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, was sitting on a camouflaged stand, he said.

Trull was planning to notify the Brewster police of the theft yesterday afternoon.

He generally checks the equipment every day or two, but had been giving it wide berth in recent days because it is bow hunting season and a hunting stand is near the camera.

Over the past three years, students have placed the camera in several spots in the woods of Brewster, Harwich and Orleans. They bait the area in front of the camera with road kill, chicken or other meat to try to lure a fisher, he said. The camera sends out an infrared beam, and when an animal passes through the beam, the camera's flash goes off and the shutter closes.

The camera has captured pictures of many Cape Cod animals snacking at the bait, including foxes, coyotes, raccoons and skunks. But, so far, no fisher has showed up on the film, Trull said.

Trull is more interested in the camera than solving the crime.

"It belongs to our students and we would like it back, no questions asked," he said. "Someone can just leave it on the bench outside the (Route 6A Orleans) school."