Photographer jailed for baiting wildlife

[mjs1973]

An interesting article from Photo District News:

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/news/Ph...ed--2042.shtml

[Grandpaw]

I would have had some sympathy for him if he wasn't aware of the law but having been warned the year before I think he got what he deserved, Jeff

[WesternGuy]

I agree with Jeff - he was warned and chose to ignore the warning and unfortunately this type of episode casts a bit of a bad light on those of us who try and do nature photography without resorting to this sort of thing. What should scare people even more though is the reference to an article at the bottom of the posted page where, it would seem, legislators in some of your states want to criminalize the taking of farm photos without the express written permission of the owner, even if the photographer is standing on public property and the "farm" area is in plain site where the owner can have no expectation of "privacy" - very scary - what's next?

Regards,

WesternGuy

[Eric D]

Baiting an animal or bird to me is unnatural photography. Anybody can get a killer shot when you set up the scene and bait. Real Photographers wait for a natural and real capture!

Just my opinion!

[OldClicker]

Just my opinion!

Good thing. I would hate to have to take down my bird feeders. - Terry

[Eric D]

Good thing. I would hate to have to take down my bird feeders. - Terry

Bird feeder are excluded. I know that sounds hypocritical but I feel thats a bit different than throwing a mouse out in front of a Raptor or feeding wild animals. Birds are used to living among us and a little bird seed isn't bad. It doesn't take away hunting instincts.

Plus bird feeder shots are obvious since they are usually in the frame, what upsets me are people who don't admit they set up and bait for the photo captures. When I see a Snowy Owl with its talons out about to strike the ground you just know the mouse was cropped out ;)

[Loupey]

The judge was wayyy too lenient - suspending 170 of the 180 day jail sentence and allowing the remaining 8 days of the remaining 10 days to be waived. He should have been jailed/fined the first time he got caught regardless of if he was aware of the law or not. One would have to be an idiot not to realize that animal behaviors (especially mammals) change when fed by people. And to do it for the sole purpose of staging photos for profit makes it even more flagrant.

[mjs1973]

When I see a Snowy Owl with its talons out about to strike the ground you just know the mouse was cropped out ;)

Your description made me think of this image. The photographer does state that this mouse was placed there by another photographer and that he had nothing to do with it, other than to take advantage of the situation that someone else created. Is that OK?

[Loupey]

Your description made me think of this image. The photographer does state that this mouse was placed there by another photographer and that he had nothing to do with it, other than to take advantage of the situation that someone else created. Is that OK?

That sucks too. That photographer led people into believing it was a pure natural shot (even though the mouse is clearly not native). He starts off saying "Thanks, it took three days and many many hours of waiting to capture this shot."

Only after someone questioned him about the mouse did he admit "I am not one to lie, and I will not do so here."

If you're going to lead people into believing that it is one thing instead of another only to admit it was the other only after being caught, well, yes that's lying.

[WesternGuy]

More ranting and raving on my part... To realize how scary this can get, you just have to remember the days when garbage was placed in "standard" containers in our National parks and wildlife areas, particularly in the western US and Canada and boy how the bears loved it. How many bears were shot because they were raiding garbage cans and were then habituated to people, losing all fear of them and then being killed "to save" people from the threat of bear attacks? Of course, nowadays, we have supposedly "bear proof" garbage containers in our parks and this has seen the numbers of habituated bears drop considerably. I would agree with Loupey, the judge should have thrown the book at this guy, particularly the second time. Anyway - rant off

Regards,

WesternGuy

[Eric D]

Loupey, You hit on the nail! All though I don't believe in baiting it's the people who claim they sat for hours or days to get the capture only to find out it took about 15 seconds! Personally for me the hunt is half the thrill!

To each his own, not my taste.

[buglinbilly]

I am an old guy who has bowhunter for over 50 years. I baited bears for many years and until or unless you have done this, one can not full understand the process and the work and waiting involved. For most of that time I wasn't into photography but bowhunting is much the same as wildlife photography in so many ways.

I have come to believe that most animals are taken with a camera or a bow under baited conditions. Call it what you want, but if you got to Yellowstone Park and take photos, you are photographing baited animals. If you sit a waterhole waiting for a critter to approach so you can take his photos (and I do plenty of that) you are taking photos of a baited animals. If you walk a flower patch taking photos of butterflies or bees, you are taking photos of baited animals.

All critters need shelter, food, water, etc. and have to breed to carry on the species, and if you take photos of them doing their thing, then in reality you are taking photos of baited animals. ONE DOES NOT HAVE TO PLACE BAIT. THERE ARE MANY NATURAL BAITS that both hunters and photographers use to get their shots, and yet many of those people are the same people who cry foul about baiting.

In essence we all use baits to get our shots and you are fooling yourself if you think different, so be careful what you say as you are most likely as guilty as the guy in Montana, with the exception he placed the bait and the rest of us are just using natural baits. But in the end a bait is a bait.

Here's a few critters I photographed at "natural baits"!`

This was taken after long hours of sitting a wallow, but a wallow is a natural bait.



Here's a bull I bugled into camera range. A bugle is a bait, albeit a sound bait, but still a bait.



This badger came into a waterhole I was sitting. Waterholes are natural baits as are grazing areas for big game animals, as is an eagles nest!


Every photo taken duringt the rut is really a baited photo, as the rut is really the bait!







Again the rut was the bait of this mule deer shot.



And a natural waterhole was a bait on this shot as I sat in a treestand and waitied for many days, but nonetheless I was sitting a natrual bait.



I would like to see some of your shots that weren't baited!

Have a good one. BB

[Loupey]

In Mike's first linked article, it states that the area game warden believes that the photographer's action led to 3 bighorn sheep to be hit by vehicles.

I wonder what his jail term would have been if convicted for poaching?

Who knows how long he has been doing this and in what quantities of what type of bait? Unless he is a veterinarian, I'll bet that the bait wasn't anything beneficial to the digestive health of the animals.

[Loupey]

...I have come to believe that most animals are taken with a camera or a bow under baited conditions. Call it what you want, but if you got to Yellowstone Park and take photos, you are photographing baited animals. If you sit a waterhole waiting for a critter to approach so you can take his photos (and I do plenty of that) you are taking photos of a baited animals. If you walk a flower patch taking photos of butterflies or bees, you are taking photos of baited animals.

All critters need shelter, food, water, etc. and have to breed to carry on the species, and if you take photos of them doing their thing, then in reality you are taking photos of baited animals. ONE DOES NOT HAVE TO PLACE BAIT. THERE ARE MANY NATURAL BAITS that both hunters and photographers use to get their shots, and yet many of those people are the same people who cry foul about baiting.

In essence we all use baits to get our shots and you are fooling yourself if you think different, so be careful what you say as you are most likely as guilty as the guy in Montana, with the exception he placed the bait and the rest of us are just using natural baits. But in the end a bait is a bait....

buglinbilly, first of all, thank you for chiming in - it is helpful to hear all sides of this issue.

The term "bait" and the action of "baiting", to me at least, is when a person introduces a food or water source that would not normally be there for the purpose of luring an animal. Watching or waiting for an animal to hunt and consume another animal, or watching an animal drink from a watering hole, or watching animals mate are all normal behavior and not baiting in my book. Perhaps they "baited" themselves but certainly not by the actions of people.

I'm a nature photographer. I never leave trash, I never knowingly damage the environment where I shoot, and I certainly don't want to alter the behavior of the subjects I shoot.

[mjs1973]

I'm with Loupey as far as his idea of what baiting is. I don't consider watching a watering hole, or a den site, or the rut as "baiting". I consider setting up an unnatural food source as baiting.

For example. I was photographing a litter of fox kits that had a den next to a county road. I was photographing them from my truck, parked in the ditch across the road. I don't consider that "baiting". A truck pulls up next to me and starts throwing dog biscuits out the window so the fox kits will come out and she can see them better. Even though she wasn't photographing them, she was baiting them with an unnatural food source. Not surprisingly, several of the kits ended up as road kill. I have no proof that it was because of the baiting since their den was so close to the road to begin with, but I'm sure it didn't help.

If I was walking through the woods and found a dead animal and sat and waited to see what came to it and then photographed it, I would not consider that baiting. Now what if I were to move that dead animal a few feet to the right or left because it made for a better photograph? Is that going too far? What about picking up roadkill and placing it in a field, and then photographing what comes to eat it? That is all part of the natural food chain and was available for scavengers to begin with so is it wrong to move it to a different location?

There was a brief discussion on baiting in one of the threads where trail cameras were being used. One of the people mentioned that they were putting dead animals out for "bait". If the animal is a native species and could naturally be found in that area, is that considered "bait" or simply part of the natural environment?

[Eric D]

buglinbilly, first of all, thank you for chiming in - it is helpful to hear all sides of this issue.

The term "bait" and the action of "baiting", to me at least, is when a person introduces a food or water source that would not normally be there for the purpose of luring an animal. Watching or waiting for an animal to hunt and consume another animal, or watching an animal drink from a watering hole, or watching animals mate are all normal behavior and not baiting in my book. Perhaps they "baited" themselves but certainly not by the actions of people.

I'm a nature photographer. I never leave trash, I never knowingly damage the environment where I shoot, and I certainly don't want to alter the behavior of the subjects I shoot.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[OldClicker]

(Oh, oh – Semi-ranting again – sorry)

I am not defending the man who was arrested (broke the law and I do not know the actual situation), but I find the general tone here a bit over the top and even hypocritical on both points of using bait and showing set up images.

On bait – I think we need to know the situation, the area and the impact on the wildlife. Blanket “baiting is bad” is ridiculous. It would be the same as my issuing a blanket “nest area is bad” statement. In most areas, disturbing a nesting area would be considered far, far worse than baiting. I understand that those who are doing it here are doing it in areas where the wildlife is used to a human presence and it is not disturbing them, but a blanket statement on nesting areas would be no more wrong the blanket statements on baiting.

Showing set up (including baiting) images – Here, I think that it depends on where they are shown and on what is implied by that showing. Extremes would be a nature photo competition with explicit rules on ‘hand of man’ and processing allowed vs. an image posted for critiquing or a general photography competition. For the snowy owl, it looks as if that site implies a real nature shot, in which case I would NOT consider it acceptable. I don’t know that I would have a problem with the posting if it was a native mouse (though I would, personally, have a problem with using a live mouse as bait).

On a lesser, but personal scale just as an example: My hummingbird shots from last summer were done with a set up (non-native, ‘cultivar’) flower with a tube of nectar inside sitting next to a sugar water feeder.

- Baiting – The feeder could have a negative impact on the HB population by attracting more birds than the area could support without the feeders and by providing a place with a higher density for the predators. When I put the feeders out, I keep them full and do not remove them until 3-4 weeks after the last HB sightings in the fall. I think this is responsible. Guilty on the predator spot – as with all my feeders (bird, squirrel, etc.), though I will not feed deer as I feel places them to near main roads and the super-predator.

- Showing – If I have not removed or added any elements (other than by cropping) and the flower is not visible, I will enter the image into a Nature competition. As long as the set up is not visible, I have shown them in the Nature & Wildlife Forum (including the ‘cultivar’ flower) with color enhancements true to the specie (to the best of my knowledge). On the image that I replaced the beak with another that was in better focus, I did not post it in the N&W Forum, did post it in the Critique Forum and did enter it into the general image competition.

My thoughts – end of rant.

Terry

[Loupey]

OldClicker - we're not arguing/ranting - just discussing - we're all friends here

...On bait – I think we need to know the situation, the area and the impact on the wildlife. Blanket “baiting is bad” is ridiculous....

I suppose if we tell ourselves that baiting isn't always bad, we should ask ourselves "when is baiting ever good" (for the animals). Photography aside, I'm pretty sure I would know the response by conservationists, zoologists, ecologists, etc.

As you, Mike, and buglinbilly brought up, there are so many degrees and levels of this issue that it is difficult to know when/if to draw the line. I too have bird feeders and throw nuts to squirrels. I suppose the question comes down to animal populations and the impact it has on the local ecology (the top predators having probably the greatest effect on the animal chain).

Great questions have been raised. I too have questions about using calls as bait. I've seen people walking the trails using an IPod with speakers to draw in birds. Does that permanently affect the behavior of birds? Does that leave nests unprotected?

When do images stop being "documentary" and more "art" and does that affect how much manipulation is done to the image and scene?

[buglinbilly]

I live close to and have hunted in Montana on a number of occasions. I understand they have no baiting laws, while their neighbors of Wyoming and Idaho allow some baiting of some species.. Different states have different laws and we all are subject to obeying them.

So my thoughts have nothing to do with defending baiting one way or the other. I simply believe most wildlife photos are taken under baiting conditions. That is not to say the person who takes the photo set out the bait, but the area he photographs is mostly likely a bait.

Let's take water sources for example. Here in the intermountain area, we are basically a high desert. Since our yearly rain fall is so limited, man made reservoirs and lakes are the norm. Without them most people and many wildlife populations could not exist. These are not natural ponds, lakes or bodies of water, but man made. The wildlife populations are not only drawn to these areas because of the habitat created by these man made, but exist because of them.

One of the definitions of bait is an enticement. ANYTHING that entices or draws an animal to an area can be considered bait.

My only point in all of this, is to point out the fact that we all have to very careful in putting down someone for placing bait (where legal) to take a photo, when in most cases we are really sitting someone else’s bait. But nonetheless its still a bait whether we want to admit it or not.

Since this thread on big horn sheep baiting, and since I like to photograph big horns, I admit the best time to do so, in most cases, is during the rut (sex then becomes a bait)t and or when the snows have pushed the sheep to lower elevation for food (bait).

Call it what you may, but most of us photograph baited animals, even though many will never admit it. Again I am not saying its right or its wrong, I am simply just stating what I see as a fact.

Taking it a step farther, is it okay for me to sit in a treestand ( I do that a lot) (mine our man made) or sit in a blind (again, not natural) or is it better to just stand by a tree in a National Park and take a photo of an animal who has become acclimated and accustomed humans?

At least from my point of view there is far more challenge and work involved in doing the way that I do it, than it is taking park photos. (And I have done that a limited number of times, but those photos don’t mean that much to me.)


So in the end, it’s as much what satisfies us, even if we camouflage a few things up---be it our blind, or the fact that we really used a bait to get the photo!









Have a good one. BB