- A wolf with lush, black fur and piercing yellow eyes is sitting on a stack of rocks in the woods, staring down a group of photographers less than 10 feet away. Whenever its head turns, camera shutters fire off like machine guns. The wolf’s handler asks the photographers how they plan to explain their luck at capturing these seemingly once-in-a-lifetime images. “The story is, you staked out for four weeks, out in the wilderness,” one of the photographers jokes.
The real story is that the wolf is a three-year-old captive named Zeus, and the photographers only drove out to meet him this morning, from their comfortable lodge five minutes away.
Makes sense in retrospect.
Was gonna say, "who gives a fuck?" Some people don't have weeks to stake out the Alaskan wilderness to get shots of wolves that nobody will buy and by definition, if it's stock photography, it's devoid of context. Obviously, welfare of the animals and safety of everyone around them is of tantamount importance. Threats to safety and comfort of the animals should be prosecuted/remedied as appropriate. The only "controversy" the author can find seems to be The International Society of Photographers Whose Revenues Have Dried Up Since The Advent of Digital Photography and their outrage that Instagram doesn't care if its critters are captive or wild.
I thought things like staged photos and events were pretty common knowledge. I mean, James Audubon hired hunters to collect specimens for him so he could make all of those beautiful bird paintings and Disney running lemmings off the cliff seems to be the event everyone always brings up. It can often be hard to get good shots (if sometimes impossible), even with lenses that can focus farther, higher definition cameras, better imaging technology, motion activated cameras, those fancy little snake cameras, etc. Documentaries often use a lot of really cool tricks, such as filming insect activities in studios with special artificial nests or taking two or three different reels of completely different animals of the same species hunting and splicing them together. The way I see it is nature is a fickle thing and even when you're in the thick of it, it's easy to miss what's going on. The filmmakers are doing their best to tell fact based stories and if that involves using a little trickery, I'm okay with that. I think the only issue I have is when wildlife photographers use bait to lure animals into a shot. I'm very anti-feeding wildlife (I'm even morally against birdfeeders and bird baths, believe it or not) and I don't think that's okay in the slightest.
My viewpoint is that if someone wants to pay money to take pictures of critters whose upkeep is paid for by people who pay to take pictures of them, then so long as the critter is okay with it who are we to judge? And sure - captivity vs. roaming free and Sea World is turribl and all the rest but it's not like there aren't wild animals in captivity all over the world. This is an interesting viewpoint. Can you elaborate?I'm very anti-feeding wildlife (I'm even morally against birdfeeders and bird baths, believe it or not) and I don't think that's okay in the slightest.
I agree with you. To expand a little, it's really important to keep the animal's welfare in mind. There are a lot of private zoos and shelters out there with a wide range of quality in animal care and I'm sure many of them are run by people who mean well, but who might not understand the biological needs of the animals they're taking care of and as a result, are unable to give them the best care possible. I'm sure there are many hoops to become an accredited member of the AZA for example, but organizations like this exist for a reason and from what I understand, they have stricter standards than the USDA (which I'm pretty certain is the governmental organization that oversees private animal collections). Sure. There are a ton of reasons why people shouldn't feed wildlife. The food that we give them might not be appropriate for their diet, it can make them grow accustomed to and possibly even dependent on humans for food, it can encourage abnormal animal congregation that can lead to aggressive behavior (towards people, pets, or each other) and the spreading of diseases, it can disrupt their eating, sleeping, and migration patterns, on and on. Feeding wildlife can easily become a real problem. With bird feeders and bird baths in particular, I'll just link to the Wikipedia Article on bird feeders and suggest you check out the "Negative Impacts" section. They summarize the point much better than I can and a lot of those same points, especially the hygiene issue, carry over to bird baths as well.This is an interesting viewpoint. Can you elaborate?