Hey
everyone, Jamie here!
Just a quick update, the crowdfunding campaign has ended and we have raised over $700 for new cameras... It is really awesome to have so much interest in the project. This completely funds the replacement cameras for the three that malfunctioned, as well as two more. I am more than pleased at our progress so far. Indiegogo has made us some sort of power fundraiser with a better rate which is cool. They also added a feature to let the funding page accept donations after the project has ended. This is a cool feature because people often message me about donating after the funding date. This makes it so I don't have to create a new page. I think I'm going to stick with our current crowdfunding schedule of offering four 60 day funding drives each for fall, winter, spring, and summer... I'm not sure if you guys know this but we are pretty much the only Bigfoot research project that has been successfully crowdfunded, and we have hit our goals several times already. So far we have raised more money than the Falcon Project, which is far more costly to operate. We are without a doubt, in terms of total area covered over time, the largest Bigfoot research project in the world.
So far this year we've had some issues covering the high lakes. We lost a camera to theft at a small lake that is popular with bear hunters. We had it in a lock box and it appears that someone had pryed it off the tree. There is a large chunk of the tree missing where it was bolted. Fortunately I had anticipated this, and replaced the HD that was previously at that location with a cheap 5mp model that only takes photos, so the thieves didn't get away with much. They did take the nice bear box too which is kinda lame as it was worth almost as much as the camera. We try to mitigate potential loses by only installing cheaper cams at these popular locations, but this is the first time we have actually confirmed that a camera was stolen.
On a good note, Robert and Rowdy were able to locate camera that had been "lost" since last July. They set it on the far side of one of the lakes and I was unable to locate it during a subsequent trip. During a scouting trip around the lake, Robert and Rowdy were able to find it. Unfortunately that camera had some sort of battery malfunction causing it to lose power, likely a shifted battery, so only a few pictures were taken on it with nothing in frame. It still seemed to function properly and had eight fresh Lithium batteries in it still. The gates will be open soon on the road to the PG film site and we will be able to service the cams for summer and check the SD cards. They have been soaking for six months now and we should be able to get to them mid April.
I'm behind on my bookkeeping so I'll try and get caught up this week and get all the donations and camera expenses tallied. I bought four cheap refurbished Bushnell trophy cams a couple weeks ago to replace our malfunctioning cameras. I might try and swap some parts to see if I can Frankenstein one or two together from the broken ones.
Also we will be getting some T-shirts and hats this summer. Team member Wes Losner is hooking us up with some shirts and I'm going to purchase a few hats embroidered with the BCP logo. I'm not sure how many I will order but I might throw a couple up on the next crowdfunding drive as a perk, although I'm hesitant to start selling merchandise. I guess I could just put them up at cost so we could avoid any issues. I really want all of the money to go solely toward cameras and not toward offering cheap merch or trinkets.
More updates coming soon,
-Jamie
Just a quick update, the crowdfunding campaign has ended and we have raised over $700 for new cameras... It is really awesome to have so much interest in the project. This completely funds the replacement cameras for the three that malfunctioned, as well as two more. I am more than pleased at our progress so far. Indiegogo has made us some sort of power fundraiser with a better rate which is cool. They also added a feature to let the funding page accept donations after the project has ended. This is a cool feature because people often message me about donating after the funding date. This makes it so I don't have to create a new page. I think I'm going to stick with our current crowdfunding schedule of offering four 60 day funding drives each for fall, winter, spring, and summer... I'm not sure if you guys know this but we are pretty much the only Bigfoot research project that has been successfully crowdfunded, and we have hit our goals several times already. So far we have raised more money than the Falcon Project, which is far more costly to operate. We are without a doubt, in terms of total area covered over time, the largest Bigfoot research project in the world.
So far this year we've had some issues covering the high lakes. We lost a camera to theft at a small lake that is popular with bear hunters. We had it in a lock box and it appears that someone had pryed it off the tree. There is a large chunk of the tree missing where it was bolted. Fortunately I had anticipated this, and replaced the HD that was previously at that location with a cheap 5mp model that only takes photos, so the thieves didn't get away with much. They did take the nice bear box too which is kinda lame as it was worth almost as much as the camera. We try to mitigate potential loses by only installing cheaper cams at these popular locations, but this is the first time we have actually confirmed that a camera was stolen.
On a good note, Robert and Rowdy were able to locate camera that had been "lost" since last July. They set it on the far side of one of the lakes and I was unable to locate it during a subsequent trip. During a scouting trip around the lake, Robert and Rowdy were able to find it. Unfortunately that camera had some sort of battery malfunction causing it to lose power, likely a shifted battery, so only a few pictures were taken on it with nothing in frame. It still seemed to function properly and had eight fresh Lithium batteries in it still. The gates will be open soon on the road to the PG film site and we will be able to service the cams for summer and check the SD cards. They have been soaking for six months now and we should be able to get to them mid April.
I'm behind on my bookkeeping so I'll try and get caught up this week and get all the donations and camera expenses tallied. I bought four cheap refurbished Bushnell trophy cams a couple weeks ago to replace our malfunctioning cameras. I might try and swap some parts to see if I can Frankenstein one or two together from the broken ones.
Also we will be getting some T-shirts and hats this summer. Team member Wes Losner is hooking us up with some shirts and I'm going to purchase a few hats embroidered with the BCP logo. I'm not sure how many I will order but I might throw a couple up on the next crowdfunding drive as a perk, although I'm hesitant to start selling merchandise. I guess I could just put them up at cost so we could avoid any issues. I really want all of the money to go solely toward cameras and not toward offering cheap merch or trinkets.
More updates coming soon,
-Jamie
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