Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]This may be true in the physical sense; however, there are more times than not that getting close enough to fill a 50, 90 or even 200mm frame with a creature, the safety and well-being of either photographer, animal or both are seriously jeopardised. Most animals are birds have an instinctive fear of man as a predator and are unapproachable at close distances. The main reason some wild animals have lost their fear of humans is that they have been hand-fed, particularly in the national parks. These animals have become conditioned to equate human approach with being fed; if food is not forthcoming, sometimes these animals remain cute and harmless but other times they become incensed and attack. Even creatures too small to inflict serious harm can carry rabies and other serious disease. In addition, close approach by humans has been noted to stress certain animals to the point where they will kill or abandon their young, or abort their natural mating instinct. The only exception to the above that I've encountered in 40 years of photographing wildlife is the Galapagos, where the animals have no native predators and therefore have no fear of humans; due to *strict* chaperoning by the Ecuadorian park service guides, these animals have *not* been tamed by hand-feeding. That is the only wild setting in which I would feel comfortable from a personal and ethical standpoint to get "in your face" with a wild animal. No, you're probably not going to singlehandedly cause the extinction of a species by snapping a quick shot of a chipmunk, and I do not mean to thrash Bud for doing so. But the actions of photographers have increasingly raised the ire of ecologists and naturalists, and an adversarial relationship is developing where nothing but cooperation should exist. Besides, Leica can't make enough money if they only sell those 400/2.8's to sports shooters ; ) Regards, Nigel On Tue, 08 Dec 1998 14:45:18 -0600 Bud Cook <budcook@ibm.net> writes: >I won't continue to bore everyone but I wanted to point out that >successfully photographing wild animals is sometimes simply a matter >of >getting close and that you don't always need specialized equipment to >bring back a trophy. > >Bud > > > > > > > > > ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]