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Thread: Little Dutch Boy at Work....

  1. #1
    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Default Little Dutch Boy at Work....

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    BPN Wildlife Moderator Peter Kes working hard with Florida's extremey wary birds. Canon 15mm fish eye with the 1D Mark III.

    We were feeding greenbacks caught the previous afternoon by yours truly and his team of cast netting helpers. Actually, Peter was the champion cast netter and taught me how to improve by leaps and bounds.

    (I do not think that I posted this before, but....)
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

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  2. #2
    Alfred Forns
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    Well behaved birds !!!! Love the wide view !!!

  3. #3
    Judy Lynn Malloch
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    Great capture of nature at it's best. Nice to meet you Peter and to see your many talents shining forth. Thanks for sharing Artie.

  4. #4
    Gus Cobos
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    Fantastic capture Mr. Morris,
    I like the fish eye perspective...:cool:

  5. #5
    chad anderson
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    I don't think I'll be real popular for saying this, but I have to. Keep in mind, I am a biologist who deals with problems resulting from hand fed animals everyday. Do you guys really think feeding birds is ethical? For that matter is it even necessary to photograph snowy egrets?
    Last edited by chad anderson; 03-19-2009 at 03:49 PM.

  6. #6
    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Hi Chad, Do feel free to speak your mind here. I will gladly respond but will begin with a question that pertains to acclimated herons and egrets: have you as a biologist ever considered how these birds have become responsive to being fed? If yes, please explain. Thanks.
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

    BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.

    Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,

    E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.










  7. #7
    chad anderson
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    Hi Art,
    Well I have not had to, but the point has been researched ad nauseam for decades. If you do a google scholar search you will find over 22,000 peer reviewed scientific papers on the impacts of supplemental feeding of wildlife. What they generally find out is that the unintended consequences are far reaching, and sometimes not very intuitive. So as far as your question about herons and egrets specifically, no I have not. Here are the problems in general that I think are applicable to feeding any wildlife species.

    -Supplemental feeding of wildlife encourages animals to become dependent on a food source or method of foraging that is not natural
    -Young animals that are taught to depend on humans may never learn natural foraging behaviors and will not be able to pass them on to their offspring, instead they will pass on the deviant behavior that they do know
    -Wildlife that lose there fear of humans are more likely to take on bold and aggressive behaviors in the pursuit of food that can result in injury to humans and animals
    -Wildlife feeding encourages congregation in high densities thereby increasing the chance to spread of disease
    -Supplemental feeding of wildlife when done on a regular basis can raise population numbers which creates stress in the population due to increased competition.
    -The effects of supplemental feeding on wildlife populations has been shown to cause a domino effect among other adjacent non-fed wildlife populations which is not fully understood yet.

    Your actions on their own may seem harmless, but between you and all the other fisherman that share their catch with our wading birds you are part of a much larger problem that is shifting the foraging ecology and therefore the biology of the birds you so much enjoy and love to photograph. But ultimately and at the very least your taking the wildness out of wildlife.

    I guess the main question is this: if there is even the slightest possibility that even a word of what decades of research has said is possibly applicable to egrets, is it really worth the risk to get a close up?
    Last edited by chad anderson; 03-20-2009 at 06:03 PM.

  8. #8
    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Hey Chad (and others), I have moved the pertinent parts of this thread including your questions and my answers to the General Photography Discussion Forum here: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...d=1#post231547
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

    BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.

    Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,

    E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.










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