Wildlife Photo Ethics

Nature Talk
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Hi all wildlife photographers,
There is an eagle nest close to our house, but a storm knocked down the nest. They have about a month to rebuild in time to have chicks this year. I was thinking of bringing sticks to the park where they get their sticks, just in case there aren’t enough sticks left to finish up the nest. This would be similar to baiting, which I will never do. Would it be ethical to bring the sticks for both environmental and photographic purposes? I already have my fair share of photos of them, and I would stay a respectful distance away.
Thanks

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I think providing sticks is perfectly fine, I would consider it a mutual relationship: the eagle doesn’t have to travel as far to create its nest, and you get some nice photos. If you were to give it a dead rabbit or something I don’t think that would be so great.

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I agree with Zdanko, I think bringing sticks would be fine, lots of people suggest putting out nesting material in yards for songbirds so why not raptors?

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Thanks!

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My one thought went to parks around here do not allow introduction of firewood from outside of the park and they will provide firewood - I can’t see them making enough money on it to call it a money grab. The effort is to not introduce diseases and such from out side the park boundaries. Sticks for raptors could be the same in that you do not want to be introducing any pathogens either to the tree/cliff face or the raptor. Of course that does not stop the raptors from doing it themselves but why help.

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I did it once, for a Cariama cristata, but the sticks were from the other side of the same park were they never went, perhaps because of the presence of much people.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/6668838

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I would like to include small size wildlife in this chat (insects!), and how to handle those small organisms for photos and in general. I often see photos of dragonflies and butterflies held by their wings, or photos of aquatic invertebrates taken out of the water.
I think iNaturalist has a wonderful opportunity to educate users about how to handle correctly also “small wildlife” while observing it or taking photos (and IF to handle them at all).

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There have been some discussion on handling here:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/ethical-behaviour-when-observing-and-photographing-animals/5368
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/dont-incur-any-amount-of-undue-stress-on-the-animal/14374
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/research-and-ethical-questions-in-arthropod-experience-of-pain/12834
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/create-a-tutorial-and-or-code-of-conduct-on-ethics-of-exploring-wild-places-for-inaturalist-users/18506

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We have polyphagous shothole borer. And have been asked to very careful of moving firewood.
Is that also a problem in your park?

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I am not familiar with the Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer (PSHB), Euwallacea fornicatus but from what I am reading it is invasive in California, Israel, and South Africa. We have a Mountain pine beetle that is problematic here in the west of Canada. I have seen whole valleys and hillside infected by this - some in my favourite parks. Other pests here in Canada include Asian longhorned beetle, Birch leafminer, Brown spruce longhorn beetle, Butternut canker, Emerald ash borer, Forest tent caterpillar, Spruce budworm, Western spruce budworm. I think they make the list of top ten because of economic impact.

Often times the dead wood/kindling can have their origin influenced by some kind of pathogen or pest - might be okay for the fire place but not in the campsite firewood pile.

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Yes, I see. I don’t think many people especially new users go digging in the forum in search of ethics.
I think would be useful to have a specific page accessible from the “Identify” main page, maybe adding a clearly stated “how to handle animals” link on the top bar?

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I think the previous discussions included a pop up text idea.

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On handling animals, I believe there are a few extensive forum posts that go into the topic of holding organisms of different types.

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Totally agree. I’ve read through (and started one of) the threads @bobmcd [linked above], and I honestly am baffled as to how there hasn’t been any movement on this on the part of iNaturalist!

On the one hand I have heard from them that this is not a democracy, so votes don’t count, on the other, I hear that they want to take community feedback into account. It seems a way to hedge against having to take any proactive role in at least staking out what iNaturalist stands for as an organization, if not a community.

Looking through the threads, the general pattern in each of the discussions I notice is:

  1. Someone brings up the idea of having some code or recommended best practices for iNatters
  2. Someone agrees
  3. Someone else denies that people could even potentially harm wildlife in documenting them
  4. Someone else supports or refutes #3.
  5. Rinse and repeat for a few weeks/months
  6. Nothing happens, the thread devolves into a side issue and gets shut down or closes due to lack of responses over time

How is it that a group full of people who love nature does not have a list of guidelines to follow while observing species in a responsible manner? I frankly didn’t expect this type of resistance or inertia from iNat and am actually disappointed by it.

Am I missing something here? This is not rocket science and shouldn’t even need to be a user-driven initiative!

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