WIRED: Shooting Nature: Cameras Gain Popularity, Guns Lose

jsrockit said:
Just in case someone was interested:

http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/06/outdoor-activity-survey/
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Not that there's anything wrong with photographing wildlife, but I laughed reading through those comments at the bottom of the article. In the US the vast majority of conservation funds come from hunting - one figure was something like $40million worth of funds going directly to conservation from one years worth of hunting in one state (wisconsin?) alone. I don't think people realize how much wildlife conservation actually rests on hunting!
 
here in Pa and in NJ as well the numbers of hunters has declined to the point that deer have become a pest. Not to mention all the Housing developments that have pushed out whatever remaining few natural predators there were....
 
I've always wanted to try shooting those clay pigeon thingamajigs. Haven't done it because I get the feeling I would get addicted to it! I'd rather have couple of cameras than a couple of guns and shooting pictures is pleasantly lo-key and when you're done there's is more than a bunch of empty shells- sometimes.
 
I have been documenting the destruction of the habitat for several years in a long term project. In Aidrie alberta Canada. \

So much wetland and native prarie grass land has been detroyed it makes me sick.


THe destruation of habbitat is the single greatest threat to wildlife in my opinion.

As distastefull as It may seem to some. Every hunter I have ever met understands the concept of sustainability .

Not true with Developers building shopping malls and single story houses.

Anything that protects habbitat also protects wildlife.
sustainability
Even if those sames folks at one point in the season, want shoot the wildlife they are protecting.

Which seems messed up but the fact is unless the do gooders /anti hunters are willing to put there money where there mouth is and buy land and leave it alone for wildlife to there thing, exsist.

But I really think for the most part hunters get a bad rap and are painted by an unfair brush.

There real killers are what I call the yellow death.



this is shot taken on what used to be a local marsh in Airdrie.

There is just such a huge presure from humans on wild animals exsistance from not just habbitat destruction , but getting run down by cars and being trapped, and poisioned and...OO . Not to mention just finding enough food fresh water to suvive and stay warm enough not to feeze to death is a miracle. It really is.


Anyways, ya pick up a camera instead of a gun.

In the end, what is needed is cash to buy land, so that animals can have wild places to live safe from the intrusion of man.























rogaltacdesign.smugmug
 
Hardly surprising. At least for the U.S., about 80% of the population lives in urban areas and their exposure to nature is limited to parks and TV programs. Hunting is, by and large, a rural past time. Having lived in both urban and rural areas, the cultural differences are very real.

Jim B.
 
Yeah well if more people are watching nature, this is a good thing both for the people and for nature... so all the defense mode comments about hunting and sustainability largely seem like a straw man argument.
 
This is hardy the place for a philosophical argument, but after working 34 years in Natural Resources management, I can tell you that the great majority of urban dwellers in the U.S. have virtually no understanding of basic ecology. Their disconnect with nature is very real and is also very disheartening.

Jim B.
 
Mackinaw said:
This is hardy the place for a philosophical argument, but after working 34 years in Natural Resources management, I can tell you that the great majority of urban dwellers in the U.S. have virtually no understanding of basic ecology. Their disconnect with nature is very real and is also very disheartening.
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So much the better if they now go out more.
 
I am a crazy rural gun owner... and I've never gone hunting. I don't really feel the need, but when I move to a new place this year, I may need to get a chest freezer for film and deer meat, though :). Good corn-fed deer is almost as good as the organic, free-range Angus raised over the hill from me in a nearby college town.

In a rural area, I've noticed guns can be a necessity. When I was in high school, I lived on a "retired" farm -- it had been used for farming for 150 years, but was then home to just a horse, some barn cats and the occasional SPCA chicken. One day, we found a coyote in the barn. It was covered in mange, it was injured by a car and, as far as we could tell, quite possibly rabid. We did not own a gun, so we called a neighbor who came up with a shotgun and took care of the problem. Shortly thereafter, we bought a gun.

Besides, hunters are some of the best environmentalists I can think of. The members of my rod and gun club are constantly collaborating with Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited to clear streams, rebuild ponds, etc., and every time I buy anything for one of my guns, there's a federal excise tax going directly to wildlife preservation. It doesn't surprise me people who want to get rid of the EPA often are not hunters (cough, Mitt Romney, cough). You would be surprised how many waterfowl hunters supported the lead shot ban, having seen the effects of lead poisoning on waterfowl.

The other plus side to hunting -- especially deer -- is fewer car accidents. I've hit four deer myself since I got my license 8 years ago. Deer are now more populous in New York than they were before white people showed up and virtually exterminated them (most deer you see in my area are actually related to deer brought from Michigan to repopulate). To top it off, there are few predators other than the occasional Ford Taurus.
 
40 years ago when I was a kid, my family moved out to a rural area in the midwest. New subdivision, multi-acre lots on what had been VERY poor farmland. In 1972, wildlife was actually relatively scarce; I rarely saw anything "interesting". A century of farming, modern pesticides, and a real problem with ferral dogs had driven it all off.

Fast-forward to today; I am living there again, with my family. 40 years of gradual conservation work have paid off HUGE. Sure, lots of development has occurred, but good conservation principals have allowed the local wildlife to return - and flourish.

Now, I see wildlife on a near daily basis that I rarely, or never saw in the '70's; fox, turkey, bobcat, heron, owls, turtles, tree frogs, wood ducks, and a herd of deer - not just the one or two of the past.

It may be easy to make hunters and development the target, but things are MUCH better than they used to be. Paid for in large part by these very targets.
 
bean_counter said:
It may be easy to make hunters and development the target
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Except that nobody here is doing it. Nobody in this thread has made hunters the target, at all. Nor has the article.

Are you guys all going into defensive mode just because of a few people writing the usual stuff in the comments section on a different website?
 
While hunting and fishing does pay for conservation work, the vast majority of funds for conservation comes from the sale of lumber.

gavinlg said:
Not that there's anything wrong with photographing wildlife, but I laughed reading through those comments at the bottom of the article. In the US the vast majority of conservation funds come from hunting - one figure was something like $40million worth of funds going directly to conservation from one years worth of hunting in one state (wisconsin?) alone. I don't think people realize how much wildlife conservation actually rests on hunting!
Click to expand...
 
Bean Counter,

how are things MUCH better than they used to be.?


In the last three years , Iv seen more land swallowed up, and wild animals dead on the road , and marshes turned to pavement than ever before. At least around these parts.







Just took this image this morning.

On the other side of the hill is huge area that is getting "yellowed deathed" out of exsistance. At least as far as wild habitat and animals.
 
you can't stop progress; but we can manage the "big picture" much better and ensure that GOOD habitat is provided

I'll wager that if the lands in the photo above were in or near long-established farming or industry, they were probably nearly dead to full food chain wildlife by the early '70's. There might be less habitat now, but we have come a long way on quality.
 
Bean Counter,

Sorry to say, this land was native prairie soil. Which has the good grass that is good eats, for deer and Richardson ground squirrels. Or as I like to call them. The protein of the praires.


Im confussed with you assertion on less habitat, but more quaility ?



The things is about critters is there sense of space is differnt than yours.

Trying to get close wild animals in the alberta praire and so find out that unless your working from a blind, you need long glass. Why because they wont toleralte us humans getting close.



And the way we build and spread out these new subdivisions and mall is nothing short of disgusting.

First off they level every last inch of nature on the surface. Literrally not single blade of grass remains. Secondly , they have never left a marsh sitting in the middle of a subdivsion. Even though it would increase the land values and leave a little for nature.

As other's have noted in this thread. There is a disconnnect in how we feel about nature.


From my prespecitvie . It's part of use and we of it.

Digging it up, and poising the rivers is like cutting off are own legs and drinking poision.
It's make no sense.


The thing is around theses parts. It's all about money and jobs . God forbib anyone saying differnt.

IF there is an endangered species in land that ear marked to be developed.
Than the saying "Shoot, shovel, and shut up comes to mind"


It's like the idiots in the minature train place next to my condo.
Over the years I have documented poisoning the ground squirrles(and called the police). When it first happened and I went over there and asked them to stop a couple of years ago. They seemed shocked when I informed them that the haxks and the foxes and the coyotee's that would eat the dead goffer's would also die.

It's not just that poision without proper permits. It's just a lack of respect for nature.

There answer was to shrug there shoulder's . Saying they didnt like goffer holes.



Someone mentioned managing nature. :rolleyes: From my experience that is code for some small furry animal, or some bird , or some liitle frog, to get the short end of the stick.


The only answer is to set some land aside for wild animals. Period.
How much land. I don't know. What ever we think they need and times it by four. Sounds about right.


Because the ways where going now, around there parts. In one generation , it will all be gone.
And what will we have in it's place.
Ugly houses with no communtiy center's in there neiborhoods, and shopping malls.








This is telling in that this lone tree's day are numbered as the city's next subdivision looms near.
 
hunting and fishing taxes and conservation efforts brought back wildlife, NOT the timber industry. if the timber industry had its way, every stick of hardwood would be cut down, and pines planted in their place. timber monoculture is deadly to wildlife. every rifle cartridge and shotgun shell i buy helps provide land and water and management for wildlife. big timber interests do lease much of their lands to hunting clubs, which, in turn, improve the land for wildlife. when big timber is a good neighbor, it is a big help, as in leaving hardwood hollows alone, and select cutting instead of clear cutting. cutting in small doses helps wildlfie, too, as important forbs freshen things up.
i like to photograph and i like to hunt. these two interests mesh well in my book.
 
paulfish4570 said:
hunting and fishing taxes and conservation efforts brought back wildlife, NOT the timber industry. if the timber industry had its way, every stick of hardwood would be cut down, and pines planted in their place. timber monoculture is deadly to wildlife. every rifle cartridge and shotgun shell i buy helps provide land and water and management for wildlife. big timber interests do lease much of their lands to hunting clubs, which, in turn, improve the land for wildlife. when big timber is a good neighbor, it is a big help, as in leaving hardwood hollows alone, and select cutting instead of clear cutting. cutting in small doses helps wildlfie, too, as important forbs freshen things up.
i like to photograph and i like to hunt. these two interests mesh well in my book.
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+1... Environmental changes are a huge problem, not only for natural habitats, but for a balance between sustainable growth of a region and environmental protection. And no one has a clue what sustainable growth in balance really is...not a clue.

Now that I am retired from all of that rat race (the rats won), I follow the same path that Paul just mentioned. Balance. What better for wildlife management than managed hunts and what better appreciation for wildlife than to photograph them?

Of course, others do not necessarily appreciate hunting but my son and his family have enjoyed the year's supply of elk meat in the freezer. I reckon I taught him well when he was young but I regret not instilling a joy of photography along with it. Me thinks it will come along in time.;)
 
the article did NOT back up the headline and lede paragraph. the article DID say the surveys showed more people are getting outside and activities are far more varied than just hunting and/or fishing.
i do agree that fewer parents nowadays are teaching their kids to hunt and fish. you know what? hunting and fishing success are not necessarily easy. one has to work at it. gear costs money, upkeep costs money, membership in a hunting club costs money, fuel costs money, as do guides, etc. one can put the cost of a good rifle and scope into a good dslr and long lens, and not have to buy ammo or a license to hunt game. hey, i am all for more photographers getting into the woods. just make sure you wear orange and don't trespass during hunting season. i do wonder if nature photographers would mind paying a wildlife excise tax on their gear ... :)
 
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