Beetle Cam

Burrard-Lucas was doing a lot with the Beetle Cam on the ground before aerial drone photography became popular.  It's interesting to see the evolution of his device, given that the first models definitely weren't lion-proof.  I still hear about photographers who have made their own remote contraptions that get carried off by lions and other wildlife.  Generally, the animals react to the ground vehicles with curiosity, but it seems that aerial drones tend to frighten wildlife much more easily.

This kind of ground drone footage has been very popular in Africa (and has produced some interesting photos), where they are still permitted in many areas, but in US national parks, drones and remote cameras have been banned for some time (unless one has special permission from the park service, which usually only occurs in the case of a commercial film shoot or, say, the Nat Geo stories that were published on Yellowstone last year).  Yellowstone has signs posted everywhere now stating drones are banned, but it still doesn't stop a few people from flying them (and getting fined) each year.

Max

Hi Max, your input is nice information all around. I would suspect that drones would scare many wildlife subjects, heck, most people are annoyed if buzzed by one. Commercial airliners are more and more having close calls with those darn things. Praying nothing seriously happens from one.
I could see the loss of one of the ground crawling units at $2k a pop could be a bit costly. But, under some good conditions the return on an award winning  $$$$ shot can offset that issue too.

Anyway, it is interesting stuff, but as you point out it can be restrictive too as to where they can be used legally and safely.

 

There are now even more refined examples of the use of robot cameras.  In a recent refinement of similar wildlife photography techniques, PBS has recently been airing "Spy in the Wild", a PBS "Nature" miniseries originally produced for BBC that uses cameras hidden in robot animals and other objects, such as rocks used in penguin nests, etc.  As with most BBC productions, the videography is excellent, but much of the "footage" seems to be photos of the fake critters with camera-eyes, and of animals interacting with these spy robots.  It seems almost like the real stars of the series are the photo-robots -- not the wildlife!  
See:   http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/spy-in-the-wild-about/14810/   and
          http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4078044/Spy-Wild-New-BBC-wildlife-uses-fake-animals.html

My wife and I watched and enjoyed the Spy-in-the-wild series, on PBS.  What struck me was, as Wayne mentions, that the majority of the footage was taken using conventional cameras and set ups (even though they weren't shown or discussed).  While the special spy cameras did get some fun footage, and make for a few interesting interactions, their main contribution was as novelty items.  It will be interesting to watch the "evolution" of these types of spy cameras.