Beware of upcoming Northern Hawl owl post

"Whether you like it or not, baiting is common practice in wildlife photography."

 

If people can't see the harm they are doing to the animals, then they have not or will not educate themselves on the issue. For some animals subjected to baiting, it could signal their eventual death, and this is everyone's loss!! If you do it you are placing yourself and your needs above everyone elses.

 

Who was this nut!

Jonathan,

 

"If people can't see the harm they are doing to the animals, then they have not or will not educate themselves on the issue."

 

Ignorance is always an issue, probably the hawkowl in Jeffreys example was resting or even stunned by flashes or whatever. The main objection against baiting is that it changes behaveour, what conveniently is forgotten is that one naturephotographer(or tourist or whatever) could hardly invluence an animal but several do. Thats exactly why it is important to discuss these issues IMO. Baiting raisis an expectance, farmiliar examples are bears, it accustomes to humans etcetera.

 

Greetings,

Another witness (and attorney at that) decided to post this guy's license number on the NY birding list. We'll see what folks with connections in DMV decide to ID the guy.

OK, I know I am risking being burned at the stake here, but I just reread the original post on this thread, and I'm trying to figure out what all the uproar is all about. Just WHAT did this guy do that was so bad he should be put away for the rest of his days.

 

Are we mad because he was "from 3 hours away" and shouldn't have taken advantage of a local situation? Is the offense trespassing? Geez, my lawn gets trespassed most every day, by someone trying to sell me a newspaper, magazine, or someone elses God. He attracted a bird to an area he wanted by using bait. Just like I was taught in nature photography class to do, by using those wildlife tapes with the sounds of dying rabbits. Or by picking up road kill to attract coyotes or mountain lions.

 

And he didn't feed the owl. Seems most people would have thought feeding the owl would have been a BIGGER offense. So basically the worst thing he did was take 40 minutes out of this birds day away from his searching for food. I can't see he put any real unusual stress on the owl. I'm sure this was not the first time this owl saw a meal he didn't end up getting.

 

It just seem to me this guy did basically the same thing wildlife photographers do every day when they hide in a blind and play tapes/CDs with the sounds of distressed animals on it to attract a predator. I have been to wildlife workshops that do this and teach this, and the animal never gets fed. Maybe the big sin here is this photographer didn't just sit around hoping for a shot, he worked to get a great shot.

The sin is setting a bad example, giving nature photographers in general a bad name, stressing the animal and all of the other offenses given above.

 

As for "taking 40 minutes out of the owl's day", that's fine. If we can get another 35 photographers up there, we can take up 24hrs of the owl's day, and if we can do that for 7 days in a row, we can keep the little bugger flying around continuously for a week. See the problem now?

 

What does it matter if I dump one bag of garbage a week in the local park. It's a big park and it will spread out so thin that nobody will really notice...

 

The point is that individual actions in isolation, even if locally only slighly harmful, may not do global harm, but if these actions are copied by enough people who think "hey, it's just me, what difference does my individual action make" then those actions have a global consequence. If you want crowds of photographers with mice tied to strings "fishing" for raptors at all the popular birding spots, I suppose you could just close your eyes to this incident.

David Daniel -- �So basically the worst thing he did was take 40 minutes out of this birds day away from his searching for food. I can't see he put any real unusual stress on the owl.�

 

<p>If this is truly how you understand the situation, I�m afraid no amount of discussion is going help you get it, but I�ll try because you should understand it. That guy had a starving bird, nearly 4,000 miles out of its natural range chase him around for 40 minutes in freezing conditions. After that, the owl then spent another hour hunting the same spots where the mice were but then were taken away. For a bird this large, most failed hunting attempts last less than a minute since the calories spent hunting would far exceed any gained from captured prey. Animals this far out of range have little chance of survival even under ideal conditions.

 

<p>You still don�t think it was harmful? It is my opinion that you don�t deserve to photograph wildlife if you don�t. If you don�t understand the biology behind this event, please stick to photographing animals at the zoo where you can�t do any harm. Taking a little time to get to know the target animal�s behavior and biology ensures your interaction with it won�t have any negative effects, and you�ll find yourself getting more keepers each time you go out.

 

<p>As for those workshops you�ve attended, do us a favor and list the operators here so we can get their opinion of this. I can�t imagine anyone considering themselves a professional would think this was an acceptable method of getting a shot under these circumstances. If you don�t want to do it here, please email me privately.

 

<p>Sean

<br><a href="http://www.stnphotography.com">www.stnphotography.com</a>

David:

 

You could possibly argue the point you make if one is alone in the wild. But when there are half a dozen observers that traveled hours to see this bird, and one photographer lures the bird away, might that be selfish and inconsiderate (forget the mouse for that point). Plus, when the other birders ask you not to do it and you do it anyway, might that not be grossly inconsiderate? (forget the mouse again). My post had many facets to this guys behavior. You have only focused on one.

 

Regards-Jeff

The alledged offending photographer's NJ licence plate number has been posted here <a href="http://www.virtualbirder.com/bmail/oneidabirds/latest.html">http://www.virtualbirder.com/bmail/oneidabirds/latest.html</a> under the "bad behavior and the law" thread.

<p>

As if NJ didn't already have a bad enough reputation....

Having checked out the NY Virtual Birder list too, the whole episode sounds like a three ring circus. In addition to the irresponsible photographer the crouds of birders have to be stressing this bird too. It's probably a very poor idea to post the location of a rare (or out-of-range) animal on line, especially if it's accessible from major population centers.

Finally, an official state government finding on the incident. Received this e-mail:

 

"While the federal law interpretation under MBTA is a bit gray ( I am waiting for more information ), it IS clearly a violation of NYS law ( 11-0103 and 11-0107 ) , to take a protected bird species , which the northern hawk owl is - all birds are except the English sparrow`, starling, pigeons, and psittacine birds existing in a wild state, not domesticated. " Take " includes disturbing, harrying, worrying, pursuing ( as well as shooting, hunting,

killing, capturing , trapping, snaring and netting etc. ). So at the very least, it is a violation of the state law, as it was clearly disturbing the owl. Hope this helps for any future situations . "

This is certainly an interesting thread, and I must agree that it sounds like the photographer was behaving wrongly. However in the UK the main threat to birds and wildlife is loss of habitat. A proposed container port in the Solent and an airport near Cliffe will do far far more damage than a rather arrogant and ignorant photographer. When I was in Florida I saw lots of forest being cleared for houses and I saw spped boats racing around despite signs indicating a 5 knot speed limit to protect Dugongs (or Manatees or whatever they are called). I guess loss of habitat happens in the background, and is less obvious, a slow encroachment. Bad photographers is a small part of the whole.

Not if you are a photographer. We all get tarred by the same brush, and get subjected to the same restrictions (not to mention possibly hostility from birders) whether we are ethical and considerate or not. If we don't speak out when we see behavior like this, perhaps we deserve that fate.

Leif,

 

"However in the UK the main threat to birds and wildlife is loss of habitat."

 

Quantity is NOT the only important factor in nature. If you want to protect the land against building it has to be in the form of a reserve. Most 'important' areas to nature are allready nature reserves and building is mostly done on former agricultural land. That said, i think the loss of habitatQUALITY is the main problem today. Not only in terms of disturbing wildlife but also in terms of polution etcetera. Furthermore if we want new areas to qualify as future reserves, behaveour and endorcement of the general public is essential.

 

Greetings,

Henk. I agree with most of what you say. One problem I have with the militant wing of the bunny hugger brigade is their inability to distinguish between areas of industrial agriculture, that are often ecological wastelands, and the more important 'wild' areas. (Many so-called wild areas such as heath and meadow are of course man made.) Some of the extremists seem to be on a permanent eco-jihad and give conservationists a bad name.

 

FYI the areas in the UK I referred to are of high quality ecologically. Both the Solent and Cliffe are very important for waders and other birds.

 

I guess the shortage of high quality habitat in the UK is one reason why UK photographers should be extra respectful when taking piccies of uncommon creatures.

 

In my own case I learnt about the importance of habitat when I was stopped by a well known naturalist when collecting fungi in a UK park. (I won't say where as I don't want to encourage commercial collectors to visit.) He politely pointed out how rare some of them were, and since then I take a lot more care, and do not pick rareties, unless collecting a specimen for the Kew herbarium. Sometimes a polite word does work though I regularly see people 'beheading' every mushroom they see, and then discarding the inedible ones. I have to admit to feeling nervous at politely explaining to them what they are doing wrong when I am on my own as people can get quite aggressive as I know from experience.

Leif,

 

Fungi are highly symbiotical OR depend on certain conditions to florish. Which practically means that they are highly perceptible for changes in their habitat or better micro-biotope. Commonly the rarity of a certain species has alot to do with habitat quality. So-called culture-followers(well its a translation im not quite happy with..) are more independent of the influence of humans/agricultural activities.

 

Especially rare animals deserve to be treated with the utmost respect, there are alot of nature photographers who put sightings of rare birds on the internet, which is especially counter-productive IMO.

 

In my experience the 'habitat loss' arguement is too much ill-used to state that our own influence is neglectible. There are relatively few animals that need a large territory/habitat actually.

 

BTW showing meaningfull habitat(or in case of fungi the symbiotic relation) of the animal in the photograph is an underestimated additional value IMO.

 

Greetings,