Outdoor Photographer Mag Takes stand against baited images

Andrew_5488 wrote:

SantaFeJoe wrote:

Andrew_5488 wrote: What I can comment on or have opinion is general practice; using bait for stupid photos, most of the time
hoping for some kind of gratification or social recognition or monetary gain. Pathetic.

As you say, opinion. 

Joe

Right,we all live by different rules. Sad but true.

It's called being human    Wildlife on the other-hand pretty much live by the same rules.  Natural instincts, what they have learned and whatever has been programmed into their DNA. 

OntPhoto wrote:

Andrew_5488 wrote:

SantaFeJoe wrote:

Andrew_5488 wrote: What I can comment on or have opinion is general practice; using bait for stupid photos, most of the time
hoping for some kind of gratification or social recognition or monetary gain. Pathetic.

As you say, opinion. 

Joe

Right,we all live by different rules. Sad but true.

It's called being human    

My choice word would be ignorance and some other worst words.

May be a good time to lock this thread. It makes me understand why ECE was totally locked!

Joe

Andrew_5488 wrote:

OntPhoto wrote:

Andrew_5488 wrote:

SantaFeJoe wrote:

Andrew_5488 wrote: What I can comment on or have opinion is general practice; using bait for stupid photos, most of the time
hoping for some kind of gratification or social recognition or monetary gain. Pathetic.

As you say, opinion. 

Joe

Right,we all live by different rules. Sad but true.

It's called being human    

My choice word would be ignorance and some other worst words.

That's why we're human.  We can all have differing opinions.  You have yours.  I have mine.  Others have theirs.  It's one of things that separate us from animals. We are not robots that all think alike

I did not read all the comments.
I tend to agree with DWCarrier on this long debated issue.
I regret a few things when I look back of my fifteen years of Bird Photography.
One of them is that I did not feed (bait) Owls and Raptors.
I have been feeding (mostly my wife) songbirds and we don't feel guilty about it, contrary we believe that we help them to survive.

Baiting is wrong and should not be used.

Folks it is very easy for threads like this to degenrate to a bad place. While I don't think we are quite there yet, I can easily see this one going over the edge. Please keep it respectful without attacking people. Certainly the ethics of the practice can be debated but lets not make it personal or use any kind of name calling. I've already received a couple of messages suggesting I lock this thread but so far have decide not to but that could change...

E.J. How about taking a poll of:
 
Who's favor of baiting? 
Who's not in favor of baiting? 
Who has no strong position one way or another?
And any other point view that may be of relevance. 

Also a tick box "I believe this has been discussed ad nauseam with nothing new added to change anyone's position" 

Needs to be worded better than my quick post but I'm sure you get the idea. 
This should take the personal out of the thread and may give a better idea where members stand on the subject.

"I believe this has been discussed ad nauseam with nothing new added to change anyone's position"

Anything more is a waste of time and bandwidth. Time to move on.......

EGrav wrote:"I believe this has been discussed ad nauseam with nothing new added to change anyone's position"

Anything more is a waste of time and bandwidth. Time to move on.......

I would be willing to bet that if the hawks and owls and whatever else is being baited were able to communicate to the baiters they would say keep it up we enjoy of easy meal.  hcarl

This thread seems to have lost sight of the fact that the Outdoor Photographer article that started things off specifically opposes baiting predators and does not comment on feeding other creatures. 

Clearly baiting a bear is a whole different matter than putting out seeds for a chickadee, for one extreme example. As the old parks adage says, "A fed bear is a dead bear." Food habituated bears become a serious safety risk to humans and so end up being destroyed while people delight in having food habituated chickadees land on their seed-bearing outstretched hands.

According to this Audubon article (https://www.audubon.org/news/why-baitin ... yard-birds), which in my opinion makes some excellent points, the ethical considerations involved in baiting raptors are far different than those in feeding songbirds. This article is definitely worth a read. One key point the article makes is that songbirds get attracted to a specific location (feeders) and to the presence of other birds already feeding there whereas owls get attracted to people who offer the bait since mice are not placed in feeders placed at a specific location. The implications of this difference are significant as discussed in the article. 

Two other Audubon articles that are also relevant to this discussion and raise some important ethical issues well worth being aware of are these.
https://www.audubon.org/news/when-its-o ... feed-birds
https://www.audubon.org/news/why-you-sh ... -bait-owls

And as has been stated elsewhere in this thread, I agree that image captions should indicate if the animal photographed was baited (or called in to an artificial perch etc. etc. etc.) so the viewer knows what they are truly seeing. As a biologist, I find it confusing to see a forest-dwelling species perched among prairie flowers, for illustrative example. If the caption indicates the bird was called in to a setup, then my confusion is resolved as I then know that the bird was not necessarily photographed in its natural habitat. While I have no ethical issue with setups per se (as long as rare flowers were not cut or invasive species/pathogens were not introduced along with the non-native perches  etc.), I do like to know whether the image is depicting a naturally occurring vs. a manipulated behaviour/setting/situation so I know how to interpret it.

And for the record, I am totally opposed to baiting predators for the ethical concerns discussed above.

Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, BC
www.neverspook.com 

hcarl wrote:

EGrav wrote:"I believe this has been discussed ad nauseam with nothing new added to change anyone's position"

Anything more is a waste of time and bandwidth. Time to move on.......

I would be willing to bet that if the hawks and owls and whatever else is being baited were able to communicate to the baiters they would say keep it up we enjoy of easy meal.  hcarl

Well, and your kids might like chips, Coke and candy and want to keep that up, but that does mean it is a good idea to give it to them.

Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, BC
www.neverspook.com

Roberta
I know you have a personal interest in ethics and we have both written here about plastic pollution in the ECE forum. I do want to acknowledge that you are on the NANPA ethics committee, as is Melissa Groo:

http://www.nanpa.org/advocacy/ethics/

Joe

SantaFeJoe wrote:Roberta
I know you have a personal interest in ethics and we have both written here about plastic pollution in the ECE forum. I do want to acknowledge that you are on the NANPA ethics committee:

http://www.nanpa.org/advocacy/ethics/

Joe

Yup. Not a secret.

Roberta