Footage reveals surprise thief in Marana trail camera caper [View all]

[Ptah]

There was just one problem: The not-so-sly criminal didn’t realize the whole caper was being recorded.

When the footage showed up on Egurrola’s cell phone first thing Monday morning, she could hardly believe her eyes. Her cameras were pilfered one after another by a fluffy-tailed gray fox.

“I’ve tried to go find them, but I can’t,” she said, adding with a laugh, “He owes me $200.”

Egurrola’s house backs up to a wedge of open desert at the base of Safford Peak, better known as Sombrero Peak, in the Tucson Mountains. She got the Blink motion-activated cameras as a gift about 4 years ago, so she decided to set them up along her back fence to see what kind of wildlife they might catch.

A gray fox, shown here with a camera in its mouth, is the culprit who stole three trail cameras from the backyard of Esmeralda Egurrola’s house on the northwestern edge of Tucson early Monday morning.

https://tucson.com/news/local/environment/fox-recorded-stealing-trail-cameras-tucson-marana/article_03d4d884-92f2-11ee-9f36-179793c7a839.html