The MeatEater

The history of trail cameras is one that covers several decades, and highlights the march of technology in the hunting space. This four-decade journey has culminated in some of the best tools whitetail hunters can use to learn about deer behavior - provided they use them correctly.

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Moultrie’s new Edge 4 Solar looks to mitigate the problem all trail cameras share—battery life. Between the new, larger solar panel and the included rechargeable battery, you can reduce your battery budget and trips to change them out. Moultrie’s newest version of the Edge doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, it makes subtle, thoughtful improvements to an already feature-rich trail camera.

I was able to get my hands on the Edge 4 Solar before it dropped. Here are my initial thoughts.

I just received the Edge 4 Solar this summer, so I haven’t had the chance to test it in harsh, wintry conditions. However, I’ve tested every iteration of the Moultrie Edge so far, and the improved photo and nighttime video quality in the 4 Solar is evident.

The same day I deployed this camera, I received a video of a doe investigating the scrape where it was placed. Some of the prior Edge or Edge Pro cameras tend to blur at night, but Moultrie improved that dilemma with the IR LEDs. As you can see below, the video quality is crisp without blurs or flares. Even the resolution in the background appears to be improved from the Edge 3.

Moultrie’s New Edge 4 Solar includes some of the same great features as previous models like the OnX integration, built-in memory with GPS, and the Live Aim, which allows for a quick, seamless setup.

New features for the Edge 4 Solar include a larger solar panel, Night Clarity (improved IR LEDs), an IP67 waterproof rating, and Buck Shot, which automatically sends zoomed-in pictures of bucks. The door on the camera also got an upgrade. Instead of the typically latch that the other Edge cameras have, the Edge 4 uses a button to open and close the controls panel, which streamlines the camera body and prevents it from snagging on anything.

One of the advantages of cellular trail cameras (where legal) is that they allow you to set it and forget it, given that you’ve found a proven spot. This is especially critical if you want to monitor a property from a few states away. The Moultrie Edge 4 Solar allows you to do this, thanks to the rechargeable battery and enlarged solar panel. MeatEater's own Janis Putelis highlighted the utility of the Edge 4's solar panel.

"Once I find the right spot for the camera, the only reason for me to touch it is if a bear turns it."

The solar panel has two adjustment wheels that allow you to position it in the direction that receives the most sunlight. This is critical for maximizing the charging capabilities, and it only takes a few moments to fine tune. I set up my Edge 4 Solar just inside a tree line that borders a cutover. It doesn’t get direct sunlight throughout the day, but it gets enough. So far my batter has been hovering around 96-98%. I have it placed on a travel route that doesn't truly heat up until October, but you should expect more battery drainage if you place it at a feeder or anywhere deer linger.

Run enough trail cameras, and it’s easy to lose a few of them, especially if you cover a lot of public ground. The OnX integration ensures that you won’t forget about your Moultrie Edge 4 after the season ends or you decide to move them to a new spot. In fact, Moultrie has a quick, convenient tutorial here on how to sync your Edge cameras with OnX.

What makes the Edge 4 Solar, and all the edge cameras, so effective is Moultrie’s user-friendly and robust app. The cataloging, OnX integration, and organization make it easy to keep track of various properties, deer, and cameras. If you're someone who prioritizes strategic organization for your hunting intel, especially whitetails, the app alone should appeal to you.

If you’re already familiar with the app, then you know how streamlined and effective it can make your trail camera strategy. If you’re looking to add a cellular trail cam to your scouting regiment, you should put this one at the top of your list. Check out the Edge 4 right here.

On Monday, July 13, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders with outsized impacts to federally-owned public lands in Utah. He shrank the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by about 90% each.

The move is yet another action in a year-long back-and-forth over the national monuments, both of which were established under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which was enacted “to provide general legal protection of cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest on federal lands.”

Grand Staircase-Escalante was established by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and later expanded to encompass 1.9 million acres. Bears Ears National Monument was established by President Barack Obama in 2016 and, at the time of his order, encompassed over 1.3 million acres. Bears Ears was designated at the behest of an inter-tribal coalition with cultural interests in the area.

Both monument designations faced fierce opposition from Utah legislators, who argued that the large-scale designations disrupted multiple uses of the land and ran counter to the original text of the Antiquities Act, which requires designations to “be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”

Meanwhile, advocates for the designation say that they incorporated public comment, balanced different types of recreational use and grazing, along with protecting the unique archeological and natural beauty of those areas.

The debate was never fully resolved. In his first term, President Trump drastically shrunk both monuments in 2017, only for President Joe Biden to restore them in 2021, adding additional acreage to Bears Ears. Now, Trump is again moving to slash the monuments, this time by even more acreage than he did in his first term.

When signing the executive order, President Trump falsely claimed that hunting and fishing were not allowed on the previous monument designations; they both were in the majority of both designations, as were things like off-highway recreation on existing routes, grazing, and other uses.

“It’s important to note that this is not a sale or loss of public land acres. These monuments were already public before their monument designation and will remain public after this change,” notes MeatEater Director of Conservation, Mark Kenyon. “But there are real impacts, namely the protections being removed from these lands, with likely increases in resource extraction and other development as the result, and a precedent being set that could lead to more monuments being shrunk or altered in the future. Given the fact that there are many quality hunting and fishing opportunities within existing national monuments today, this is an issue that deserves the attention of the hunting and angling public.”

Earlier this year, MeatEater reported on an attempt by Utah’s congressional delegation to go after Grand Staircase-Escalante’s management plan, but that effort appears to have been subsumed by this week’s executive orders, which will reduce Grand Staircase-Escalante by 1.87 million acres, leaving only 181,500 acres within the designation. Additionally, Bears Ears will be shrunk by 1.36 million acres to approximately 121,100 acres.

The reductions are significantly greater in scale than those that Trump doled out during his first term, though a White House fact sheet notes that “the specific landmarks, structures, and objects of historic and scientific interest that the Antiquities Act and monuments safeguard will continue to be protected."

Some conservation groups have panned the move and promised litigation; while the Antiquities Act gives presidents the power to establish national monuments, they argue that it does not give them the ability to shrink them. A lawsuit along those lines was filed back in 2017, but the monuments were restored before the courts issued a final decision on the lawsuit.

“This action will only bring uncertainty and chaos to places that should instead be protected for their rich biodiversity, unique geology, and remarkable cultural values,” said Scott Braden, Executive Director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance in a press release. “The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is committed to defending the monuments—whether that’s in a court of law or the halls of Congress.”

Trump’s executive order will revert the former designations to their previous management statuses. Some conservationists worry that doing so will open the door for rampant off-road use, as well as resource extraction, to the detriment of the area’s long-term preservation, and consequently, hunting and fishing opportunities.

With the help of Crooked Sky Outfitters, Steve rides horseback into the backcountry of Wyoming with Janis Putelis and Adam Weatherby in search of mule deer. Steve and Landon find the buck of his dreams, but a sudden snow squall complicates the stalk. Presented by Busch Light

Steven Rinella talks with journalist Ann Vaughan about the costs of datacenters on water, energy, and the land.

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This week, Cal runs down recent legislation, regulation changes, and a legal challenge of the CRA, as well as the story of a Japanese woman who faced off with a bear armed with a common household device.

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On June 24, an Oregon-based environmental group filed a lawsuit that could have broader ramifications for public land conservation across the country. Cascadia Wildlands, which bills itself as “defending Cascadia’s wild ecosystems in the forest, in the courts, and in the streets,” is challenging a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) timber sale in Western Oregon. But what’s particularly noteworthy is how the organization is doing so.

Specifically, Cascadia is arguing that the Aloha Trout Forest Management Project violated the Administrative Procedure Act because it was never reviewed under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). This rationale is part of a broader debate over the CRA.

According to John Ruple, professor of law at the University of Utah, the CRA was passed in 1996 by Congress to create “a faster way to rein in federal agencies that were perceived to be coloring outside of the line.” While Congress already had that power, the CRA essentially created a fast-track to do so by giving lawmakers a 60-day window to introduce a resolution of disapproval for “rules” that agencies issued. They could then forego many of the normal requirements for enacting laws and repeal regulations quickly and circumvent the Senate filibuster when doing so.

Soon after the legislation was enacted, Congress asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) if federal land management plans counted as “rules” under the CRA. The GAO said they were, but, according to Ruple, “Congress and federal agencies essentially shrugged and acted as if it wasn’t the kind of technical, legalistic interpretation that anybody intended.”

For decades, land use plans weren’t reviewed under the CRA—until recently, when congressional Republicans began using the rule. In 2025, legislators overturned three BLM plans, targeting the Miles City Field Office in eastern Montana, the Alaska Office’s Central Yukon district, and the entirety of the North Dakota Field Office. Republican lawmakers did so in the interest of increasing natural resource extraction in those areas.

The CRA explicitly requires a rule to be submitted and reviewed “before [it] can take effect.” For those BLM plans, that was never done, which Congress used to justify its actions. They made a similar move with a mining prohibition in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters.

Cascadia Wildlands’s legal representation, Susan Jane Brown of Silvix Resources, says that this action has opened the door for litigation. Basically, the lawsuit argues that because the management plan guiding the contested timber sale was never submitted for congressional review, it violates the Administrative Procedure Act—legislation that governs how federal agencies propose and issue regulations. “This [lawsuit] is the inevitable conclusion to the misuse of a federal law,” Brown said. “I just don't think that anyone really ever intended for the CRA to be used in this way.”

Cascadia Wildlands’s lawsuit appears to be the first to invoke the CRA to challenge a sale or regulation issued under a resource management plan. The outcome of the case could have serious implications well beyond Oregon. If the judiciary rules in favor of Cascadia, it would make any regulation issued in a resource management plan issued since 1996 vulnerable to litigation. This wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing for environmentalists; industry groups could also use this to go after environmental protections. “I would fully expect a flood of lawsuits challenging resource and land management plans,” Brown said.

“What we’re talking about here is blowing up the rules,” Ruple added. “I don’t think anyone is better off if these management plans are torn up.”

Another potential outcome of the case would be that it spurs Congress to pass legislation to explicitly exclude land management plans from the purview of the CRA. This would provide stability for land management agencies as well as folks with interests in environmental regulations or resource extraction.

“It is an opportunity for Congress to right some wrongs,” Brown said. “Congress has used the CRA as a trump card to score political points. This kind of lawsuit is what happens when Congress doesn't really think hard and doesn't listen to legal advice about the consequences of scoring political points.”

However, another potential outcome, according to Ruple, could be that Congress would be required to go back and review hundreds of management plans that were issued in the last 30 years. “They would be literally buried in paper,” he said. “It would be a massive burden.”

This kind of extreme outcome would undermine and destabilize public lands across the country. According to Brown, the risk is worth it for her client, which she says does not have “a lot to lose” in their specific situation of challenging a 2016 management plan that reduced protections of old growth forests compared to a preexisting 1994 forest plan.

The lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Oregon. Depending on the outcome, the case could be appealed to higher federal courts. The representation for the Department of the Interior could also seek to dismiss the case on legal grounds or pursue a settlement. MeatEater will continue to track this case and its implications for public land users.

“We’re serious about this and looking forward to engage the courts with the issues here,” Brown said. “I’ve been practicing law for more than 25 years now, and these kinds of cases don’t come along very often. My client and I are really excited to press our case and see where it goes.”

Flying is always stressful for Brent. He says he likes being in different and remote places, he just doesn't always enjoy the process of getting there. A fear of flying isn't the issue; trusting his possessions to strangers is. You're allowed to carry backpack with a shaving kit and extra change of clothes on the plane with you, but you can't carry a bow and arrow and store it in an overhead bin. If he could, though, he wouldn't have anything to talk about this week. Get your boarding pass and settle in at the gate. It's time for MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast.

Thank you to our sponsors, Case Knives and Stor-Mor.

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Maggie Bassett and Shonna Dehl were camping on Sunday, July 5, in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming when a black bear attacked their tent.

"It wanted in the tents," Dehl told KTVQ News. "That's all it wanted. It didn't matter what we did."

Bassett and Dehl yelled, screamed, and even fired gunshots at the overly curious bruin. But apparently that wasn’t enough to scare it off. "It didn't even blink,” Bassett said. “It just kind of circled around and came back at me from a different angle."

After firing a few more gunshots, the bear eventually ran off, allowing the two women time to flee to their vehicle. They remained there, honking at the bear for a few more hours before driving away to Dehl’s nearby family cabin.

"I will never forget that sound of my tent being ripped open," Bassett said.

Miraculously, both women made it out unharmed from this close encounter with what appears to be a food-conditioned bear. The women followed standard bear-safety protocols—using bear containers and keeping a clean camp.

“We took all the precautions to pack up all food and drinks and nothing in our tents, but the bear went straight for us and our tents,” Dehl wrote in a Facebook post. “We had to abandon camp in the middle of the night but the bear still came back and completely destroyed our tents.”

According to the National Park Service, "Food-conditioned bears learn to seek humans and their developments for rewards.” It’s likely that this bear received some type of human-associated food reward at this location previously to go in with such little fear. Once a bear loses its natural fear of humans, it’s likely it'll get into more trouble seeking out unnatural food sources.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has been notified. They plan to trap and relocate the bear.

So this situation means you can follow all the rules, do everything right, and still have a negative bear encounter? Technically, yes. But that’s no reason to not recreate in bear country. Store your food safely, carry bear spray, a pistol, or both, and stay aware of bear sign in the area.

Feature image of destroyed tents via Shonna Dehl’s Facebook.

Derrick from Whitetail Research joins Jake Hofer to break down what thousands of thermal drone flights have revealed about mature buck behavior. Derrick shares some of his findngs from thousands of thermal drone flights. Why mature bucks aren't always bedding where hunters expect. The surprising differences between hill country and ag country. Summer bachelor groups and what actually happens before the season. Early-season mistakes that cost hunters opportunities. Whether trail cameras are giving hunters an incomplete picture. How hunting pressure, human activity, and access influence mature bucks.

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