Isle Royale Forums

Talk about finding a needle in a haystack... On my recent trip to IR in August, I paddled my kayak up on the beach at Rainbow Cove and as I looked to my left as I stepped out of my boat, there was an SD memory card laying right there on the beach.

I picked up the card and stuck it in my camera case. When I got home I looked through the pictures to see if there was anything that would identify the owner. (i.e. What would a private investigator look for?) I found nothing immediately identifying. The best possibility is one picture taken from the driveway of a house where I can see a house number and a car with a Michigan license plate. The common person in many of the pictures seems to be a 20-something male.

If this was my card, I'd for sure want it back. There are some good shots on there and obviously it has more value to the owner than anyone else.

So before I start doing some real investigation, does anyone know if the Isle Royale NPS has a lost-and-found? My first hope is that the owner would have reported it lost to the NPS in the hope of by some slim chance someone actually found it and turned it in.

Besides the NPS and attempting to find the owner of the car based on license plate number, does anyone have any other ideas on how I might possibly track down the rightful owner?

It's a slim chance but the EXIF data in the photo files may contain GPS information.
http://exifdata.com/

Someone here may know something about the owner but the chances are low. Unless you want to hire a licensed private investigator, you can contact the Isle Royale NP Headquarters in Houghton, MI at:

800 East Lakeshore Drive
Houghton, Michigan 49931-1896

ISRO_ParkInfo@nps.gov
Telephone: (906) 482-0984
Fax: (906) 482-8753

They may have already been notified of the loss. I'm pretty sure they'll have the ability to cross check the photo information (i.e. license plate number) once they have the card.

I have seen many camera owners reunited via facebook. Post a pic of the common person and ask your friends to share it, it spreads extremely fast...7 degrees of seperation. If you are not a Facebook user send me a PM with a pic I wil post it for you.

Tip:

Every time you use a new memory card, write your name, mailing address, email address and phone number on a sheet of paper using something like a Sharpie. Take a picture of this sheet of paper. It will now be the first picture on the card. If you lose it (and the finder wants to return it), it's a snap to figure out who it belongs to.

drobarge wrote:Post a pic of the common person and ask your friends to share it, it spreads extremely fast

2012 and the era of Facebook aside, posting a picture of a complete stranger in a public place still seems a little strange to me. With my luck it he would end up being someone in the witness protection program.

Midwest Ed wrote:

drobarge wrote:Post a pic of the common person and ask your friends to share it, it spreads extremely fast

2012 and the era of Facebook aside, posting a picture of a complete stranger in a public place still seems a little strange to me. With my luck it he would end up being someone in the witness protection program.

I agree with Ed. For the sake of the owner's privacy, I'd be a bit hesitant to try to spread his picture around. So this may be a last resort.

I will check the card for the exif data and will try contacting the park headquarters.