{"id":14178,"date":"2013-04-09T07:31:01","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T13:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=14178"},"modified":"2013-04-09T19:33:32","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T01:33:32","slug":"yet-another-reason-why-i-dislike-baiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/yet-another-reason-why-i-dislike-baiting\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet Another Reason Why I Dislike Baiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baiting birds into close proximity for photographic purposes is a highly controversial subject, especially when it’s done to raptors.\u00a0 Often live bait\u00a0such as\u00a0store-bought mice are thrown in front of the photographer so that photos can be obtained of the bird (owls especially, but other raptors too)\u00a0in flight as it swoops down for the rodent.\u00a0 But ingenious variations on that theme exist, from using dead fish and store-bought\u00a0meat to\u00a0electronic bird calls and stuffed owls (raptors and other birds often mob a perched owl out in the open).<\/p>\n

Personally, I find the practice abhorrent for a variety of reasons.\u00a0 First and foremost is the potential for harm to the birds from the spread of disease and increasing the likelihood of injury or death to the bird as road kill or from\u00a0acclimation to human activity.\u00a0 There’s always a certain element of human society that will harass wildlife at every\u00a0opportunity and “taming” raptors increases that potential.\u00a0 See this link<\/strong><\/a> for a particularly disturbing local example of the type of human scum that\u00a0wildlife of any kind should stay as far away from as possible.<\/p>\n

For me, baiting birds is not “nature photography” – it’s more akin to studio or zoo photography.\u00a0 I want my subjects as free and wild as possible and their behavior to be natural.\u00a0 Yes, that makes the shot much more difficult to get but when I do get it I’ve really got something.\u00a0 I have no Marty\u00a0Stouffer-esque aspirations…<\/p>\n

But there’s another, more selfish reason why baiting gets my dander up.\u00a0 I refuse to bait myself or to photograph birds that others have baited but that distinction can be very difficult to make in the field.\u00a0\u00a0 Baiting is often done at prime raptor\u00a0locations and it can draw in many if not most\u00a0of the raptors in the area so you’re sometimes left with two choices –\u00a0photograph birds that may have been baited by others or suck in your gut and go home.\u00a0 I’ve been forced to do the latter many times.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/a><\/p>\n

I really like this image.\u00a0 Northern Harriers have unusually long tails and wings but that characteristic is usually almost impossible to appreciate unless you can get them in a difficult flight pose like this.<\/p>\n

I got this shot\u00a0on January 2 of this year as the bird swooped down onto what I thought was a dead carp half buried\u00a0in the phragmites.\u00a0 It turned out that the “fish” was really a \u00a0store-bought chicken that photographers had placed there to bring in eagles and harriers.\u00a0 But other birds were feeding on it too, including hordes of coots.<\/p>\n

I got many nice shots of harriers in the vicinity that day.\u00a0 But now I know that at least some of them were baited so I’ll either have to\u00a0delete those images or disclose that they were baited whenever I might use them, which I absolutely despise doing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"baiting<\/a><\/p>\n

Two winters earlier I was\u00a0photographing eagles in the same area that were\u00a0feeding on carp (the fish are killed by refuge personnel to control their destructive habits to emergent vegetation) with a group of other photographers.\u00a0\u00a0We were\u00a0all shooting with tripods (unusual for me) when one of the photographers asked if “anyone minded” if he went out and moved\u00a0some of the fish to more photogenic locations where the eagles coming in would be easier to photograph.\u00a0 This of course would be just another form of baiting.\u00a0 I figured that since he asked he really wanted an honest answer so I\u00a0told him (nicely) that yes, I did mind since that would be baiting.<\/p>\n

He did it anyway.\u00a0\u00a0I couldn’t resist documenting him stabbing the carp in the tail with a screwdriver so he could move it to a “better” location.\u00a0 I packed up my gear and left.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bald<\/a><\/p>\n

The winter of 2008-9 was the best winter for photographing\u00a0Bald Eagles\u00a0that I can remember.\u00a0 There were many hundreds of eagles in the wetlands surrounding the Great Salt Lake but most of them were drawn to the refuge as soon as they did the carp kill.\u00a0 Some might argue that this is a form of baiting in itself since the fish were killed by humans but personally I’m\u00a0ok with it since\u00a0they were killed for conservation purposes rather than for photographic purposes.\u00a0 But it’s a fine line, I know…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bald<\/a><\/p>\n

I got many images of eagles that winter that I like a lot, in a variety of settings and poses and in some incredible light.<\/p>\n

But I had a nasty surprise one morning late in February.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"baiting<\/a><\/p>\n

After shooting eagles all morning with many other photographers (most of us from our vehicles)\u00a0I left the prime spot to look for harriers.\u00a0 By the time I returned it was late in the morning and the light was less than ideal so most of the photographers had left.\u00a0\u00a0 As soon as I pulled up this is what I saw – one of the photographers had waded out into the water and was moving some of the carp to “better” locations with the shouted directions from another photographer.<\/p>\n

I was astounded.\u00a0 When\u00a0one of the other photographers (very well-known in the nature photography community)\u00a0noticed my chagrin he very\u00a0sarcastically said to me “so, you won’t bait yourself but it’s ok as long as the baiting is done by someone else?” I realized that this practice had likely\u00a0been going on for at least part of that winter.\u00a0 They would wait until every one else was gone to move the fish\u00a0so that others wouldn’t know it was being done – they obviously weren’t proud of what they were doing.\u00a0\u00a0 So some of my very favorite eagle images may have been baited and I don’t know which ones.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And that makes me angry.<\/p>\n

My point:\u00a0 If I choose not to bait, my decision has no effect on others.\u00a0 But those who bait often give the rest of us no choice but to shoot birds who may have been baited or go home.\u00a0 I’m not alone\u00a0in my feelings about baiting – many of us feel the same way.<\/p>\n

This winter, baiting at the refuge was rampant and obvious so I almost completely avoided the place but I wasn’t happy about it.<\/p>\n

Ok, I’m through with my rant but it was a catharsis of sorts for me to get this off my chest…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baiting birds into close proximity for photographic purposes is a highly controversial subject, especially when it’s done to raptors. Often live bait such as store-bought mice are thrown in front of the photographer so that photos can be obtained of the bird in flight as it swoops down for the rodent.<\/p>\n

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