Have you ever seen a bear family digging up a wasp nest, a wolf pack chasing elk on a snowy night, or lynx kittens playing? These are exceedingly rare sights even for experienced wildlife trackers and photographers, and yet they are all within reach of anyone with a low-cost trail camera and an interest in learning more about these species.

In our series, Trail Cameras and Custom Camera Traps, our goal is to provide to hobbyists, citizen scientists, wildlife educators, photographers, hunters, and biologists with the critical information needed to capture compelling wildlife photos and/or explore wildlife behavior through the responsible and ethical use of camera traps.

We accumulated material for this series by managing about a hundred camera sets over a ten year period. We've reviewed tens of thousands of photos and videos. We also ran controlled tests of our equipment to better understand how to get the most out of each set.

This first book in the series covers the technology of camera traps, techniques for successfully deploying and servicing them, ethical and legal issues, the use of online mapping tools to find promising camera sites, and the use of wildlife tracking skills to fine tune camera placement.

We focus on practical advice, with examples, photographs, and illustrations to put this advice into context.

This book is broadly useful for any camera trapping location. Later books in the series will provide detailed camera trapping advice for select mammals found in Western North America.

Janet Pesaturo is a conservation biologist by training, a Level III CyberTracker, a camera trapper, wildlife educator, and author. She has taught workshops and given walks and talks on wildlife tracking and camera trapping. Janet has written blog posts on animal behavior based on tracking and camera trapping data and has a published scientific article. The latter describes previously undocumented scent-marking behaviors of mammals based on camera trapping data.

Her first book, "Camera Trapping Guide: Tracks, Sign, and Behavior of Eastern Widlife" was the first "field guide" to camera trapping, providing a species-by-species instruction on using trail cameras and animal track and sign and behavior to capture compelling photos and video.

Robert Zak is a consultant, blogger, and developer of camera trapping hardware and software. Bob retired from Intel in 2022, where he was a Fellow and recognized expert in networking for high performance computing systems. Bob is coauthor of several published papers, including an award-winning foundational paper in parallel computing. He holds more than a dozen US patents.

"Drawing on decades of field experience, authors Janet Pesaturo and Robert Zak present a clear, practical guide to wildlife camera trapping, from commercial trail cameras to advanced DSLR setups. They share proven strategies for selecting camera sites, interpreting wildlife tracks and behavior, and maintaining ethical field practices that respect animals and their habitats. This book is an invaluable resource for researchers, conservationists, and anyone committed to using camera traps responsibly to photograph wildlife." — Tim Manley, Retired Grizzly Bear Specialist; trail camera developer and user since 1985

"This book is full of crystal-clear explanations of how automated cameras work, how to choose which ones to use, where to put them and how to set them up, and how to handle the videos and images they produce. It goes far beyond the basics, and will help both recreational and professional camera trappers to get the most out of the cameras they use. The technical sections should be set readings for tertiary courses about wildlife and conservation." — Peter Apps, Senior Researcher at Botswana Predator Conservation

"Trail Cameras and Custom Camera Traps is an excellent resource for beginners and experts alike who are looking to hone their craft. Janet and Robert have become widely known within the camera trapping community for gathering high-quality footage of rare wildlife and their behaviors while still considering ethics that minimize impacts to the animals themselves. As an amateur camera trapper, I've often reached out to Janet and Robert with questions and for troubleshooting advice, as they have established themselves as leaders in the field. I'm ecstatic that they have published this book as a valuable learning resource for others like myself." — Luke Lamar, Managing Director at Swan Valley Connections