{"id":2535,"date":"2011-08-16T10:53:41","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T16:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=2535"},"modified":"2011-08-16T18:22:53","modified_gmt":"2011-08-17T00:22:53","slug":"baiting-a-matter-of-definition-and-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/16\/baiting-a-matter-of-definition-and-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"“Baiting” – A Matter of Definition and Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baiting just may be the most hotly debated topic in the\u00a0bird photography community.\u00a0\u00a0 Part of that debate revolves around the fact that\u00a0not all nature photographers agree on a precise definition for the term.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve followed and participated in discussions of this “hot topic” in nature photography discussion forums for years now and it seems that the most mainstream definition, the one that the vast majority of avian photographers\u00a0subscribe to, is a version of this: baiting – <\/em>using food or other items or methods to artificially lure birds in close to the photograpaher.\u00a0 This would include using recorded bird calls, “setups”, back yard bird feeders, stuffed raptors (many birds come in to “mob” raptors) and a variety of other ingenious methods used by some well known “nature” photographers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the most controversial forms of baiting is using live bait (often pet store mice) to bring in raptors – owls in particular.\u00a0 This practice can have many negative efffects on the birds – from making them dependent on an artifical food source to spreading disease to causing birds to be hit by cars – not to mention the ethical dilemma of “nature” photographers photographing birds in unnatural situations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To bait or not to bait is an ethical decision that virtually every bird photographer must make.\u00a0 For me that decision was easy – I do not bait my intended subjects.\u00a0 I do sometimes photograph birds at my back yard feeder simply\u00a0for the practice but I don’t post those images on online forums, include them on my website or blog or offer them for sale.\u00a0 To me, baited shots approach studio or zoo photography and are not nature photography.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ok, to\u00a0the point of this blog.\u00a0 Earlier this spring I recieved a very unpleasant email from a “lurker” (someone\u00a0who occasionally comments on the images of others \u00a0but doesn’t post his own images or join the forum)\u00a0on\u00a0an online nature photography critique forum that I regularly post to.\u00a0 \u00a0I’ll hereafter refer to this person as “Fred” (not his real name).\u00a0 His email was in response to the photo below, which I had posted\u00a0on that forum for critique.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"marsh-wren-0780\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Canon 7D, 1\/2000, f\/8, ISO 400, EV -0.33, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0When I posted the image\u00a0I stated, as I always do, that the bird was “not set up or baited” and that the photo was taken at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.\u00a0\u00a0In his email to me Fred accused me of being either “naive” or “intentionally misleading” because I had claimed that the wren had not been baited,\u00a0as it is his contention that “any creature photographed at any wildlife refuge is\u00a0by definition baited” since there has obviously been “massive habitat alteration to bring in the various creatures”.\u00a0\u00a0 He also said that I “demeaned my work” by claiming that photos taken at refuges were not baited.<\/p>\n

I disagree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"merganser-5861\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Canon 7D, 1\/400, f\/7.1, ISO 640, EV +0.33, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

This merganser image was taken at a local bird refuge.\u00a0 Mergansers are fish eaters.\u00a0 Ironically, this refuge goes to great effort to\u00a0eradicate<\/em> the invasive carp that these birds eat because the fish do so much damage to emergent vegetation needed for waterfowl habitat.\u00a0 So, was the bird baited, based on the most commonly accepted definition of the term?\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"red-breasted-merganser-4816\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Canon 7D, 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 320, EV +0.00, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

I took this image of a Red-breasted Merganser at a suburban fishing pond just below my home.\u00a0 Obviously the merganser was on the pond because of the fish provided by the DNR and there has been habitat alteration to provide the pond in the first place.\u00a0 Was I being naive or intentionally misleading when I didn’t say the bird was baited when I posted the shot?\u00a0 In my opinion, definitely not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"short-eared-owl-1540\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Canon 7D, 1\/400, f\/8, ISO 500, EV +0.33, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

One final example.\u00a0 I took this shot last week in NW Montana.\u00a0\u00a0This Short-eared Owl is living\u00a0on a section of land that has been placed in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) – where farmland is taken out of production and allowed to revert to a\u00a0natural state in an effort to reduce erosion, improve river quality and provide wildlife habitat.\u00a0\u00a0 Would Fred say this shot was baited because the land was allowed to go wild in a deliberate attempt to attract and support wildlife?\u00a0 I don’t know what he would say (and don’t care to find out) but I hope I’ve made my point.\u00a0 A precise definition of baiting that works for everyone is likely unobtainable.\u00a0 The best that we can do is use the mainstream definition accepted by most nature photographers and be honest about how we’ve obtained the shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fred and a few others are\u00a0entitled to what I consider to be an extremist definition of baiting but I resent his accusation that I am naive on the subject or have been intentionally misleading others by my “not baited” claim on my posts.\u00a0 Any reasonable person knows what I have and haven’t done to get the image\u00a0when I say “not baited”, especially when I indicate that the shot was taken at a refuge.<\/p>\n

Ok, I’ll\u00a0get off the soap box\u00a0now but it does feel good to finally get this off my chest.\u00a0 A catharsis of sorts…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

PS – I haven’t made a blog post for a while because I’ve been on an extended camping\/photo trip to western Montana.\u00a0 Now that I’m home again and mostly caught up with the backlog of chores that accumulated in my absence I’ll\u00a0 be more diligent with my blog\u00a0posts.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baiting just may be the most hotly debated topic in the\u00a0bird photography community.\u00a0\u00a0 Part of that debate revolves around the fact that\u00a0not all nature photographers agree on a precise definition for the term.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve followed and participated in discussions of this “hot topic” in nature photography discussion forums for years now and it seems that the most mainstream definition, the one that the vast majority of avian photographers\u00a0subscribe to, is a version of this: baiting – using food or other items or methods to artificially lure birds in close to the photograpaher.\u00a0 This would include using recorded bird calls, “setups”, back yard bird feeders, stuffed raptors (many birds come in to “mob” raptors) and a variety of other ingenious methods used by some well known “nature” photographers.\u00a0 One of the most controversial forms of baiting is using live bait (often pet store mice) to bring in raptors – owls in particular.\u00a0 This practice can have many negative efffects on the birds – from making them dependent on an artifical food source to spreading disease to causing birds to be hit by cars – not to mention the ethical dilemma of “nature” photographers photographing birds in unnatural situations.\u00a0 To bait or not to bait is an ethical decision that virtually every bird photographer must make.\u00a0 For me that decision was easy – I do not bait my intended subjects.\u00a0 I do sometimes photograph birds at my back yard feeder simply\u00a0for the practice but I don’t post those images on online forums, include them on my website…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,16],"tags":[42,74,465,466,126,215,216,461,464,279],"class_list":["post-2535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-photography-ethics","tag-baiting","tag-carp","tag-conservation-reserve-program","tag-crp","tag-ethics","tag-marsh-wren","tag-merganser","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-refuge","tag-short-eared-owl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-ET","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}