Toutle man captures wildlife on hidden cameras in woods - Longview Daily News
TOUTLE — The woods are Cliff Wheeler’s photography studio, and the animals that live there are his unassuming subjects. Over the years, Wheeler has set out hidden cameras and recorded thousands of images of wildlife: deer, elk, bear, cougar, beaver, mink, eagles and other species. The animals in some of his photos are posed so well posed that it looks like he crouched in a blind to get a perfectly framed shot. Other photos show just the head or rear legs of a critter trotting by. Most of the animals appear oblivious to the camera, though one bear stuck its nose into the camera for what looked like a selfie. Wheeler grew up in the Toutle area and worked in the woods for Weyerhaeuser for years before moving to a job at the company’s Longview mill. One recent day, Wheeler hiked in to check four cameras he had set out several weeks earlier near the south side of the Toutle River. It takes about an hour of hiking past a closed gate to reach Wheelers’ cameras. “We can’t put them on the roads because someone would steal a camera,” Wheeler said. He also had to take a break from trail camera photography last fall because Weyerhaeuser leased the land he uses to a group of hunters. Source: tdn.com
