Over the years I have written extensively about the topic of baiting wild owls and other raptors for the purpose of getting high-quality photographs, especially flight shots. As a nature photographer, I am staunchly opposed to it. Naturally, though one's mere presense in the outdoors can impact wildlife, the whole point as a naturalist and nature photographer is to keep it to an absolute minimum. I could link all those articles to this post, but simply search my blog with "baiting" and you'll find them.
That baiting owls is regarded as unethical and potentially dangerous (to both photographer and animal) by major conservation and wildlife advocacy groups across North America is utterly lost on Trevor Lowthers. I learned about him after a friend shared a video of him hand-feeding wild Barred Owls. He has a YouTube video titled "The Real Truth About Owl Photography" which I can no longer link to because he either blocked me or removed it. If you do find it, check out my two comments and see if you think I said anything controversial.
Anyhow, he emailed me via YouTube comment notification:
"I’m writing a book about birders and their propensity to overreact about the frivolous. Now that I have real comments from my video I can use them in my satire. It was too easy. You couldn’t help it any more than an owl coming in for a free meal to satisfy the hunger of her owlets. You were perfect just being you and trolling around on the internet for low lying fruit to throw without any objectivity. You’ve been baited and manipulated. You are the owl! Do you feel any different? Probably not. You couldn’t change if you wanted to. You were just doing what owls do and you’ll be just fine sitting in the same chair every evening regurgitating pellets at people. You can’t change. You are the owl. There are lots of published behavioral prognostications from pseudoscience about how I must have detrimentally damaged your journey on this planet, but just like my owls [emphasis mine], I’m sure you will survive. However, there are probably lots of studies on people who have been manipulated like you who are simply too mentally shattered to ever type another message, but I won’t tell you how you must be feeling. I hope I haven’t wrecked the internet for you."
WTF? Very good, sir. Let your words be considered fair game. In my first comment I wrote that there's no getting through to such people and he wasted no time validating that notion. Note the usage of "my owls" above. Therein lies a stark ideological chasm between my notions of what counts for healthy respect for nature's flora and fauna and his. They're not your owls. Further, in all likelihood he was responsible for the demise of an entire Barred Owl family taken out by a Great Horned Owl. On their own, Great Horned Owls and Barred Owls can coexist with minimal interactions. But if you're constantly interfering with them and causing them to be exposed during the day more so than they might otherwise be on their own, then you're responsible.
"After they were old enough to fly well in mid July I could tell they were eager to start pouncing so I stopped feeding and would just go and interact with them. They were healthy and hunting by themselves. sure some people don't give a shit. This was my octopus teacher moment and I look forward to seeing it again if the right circumstances present. Probably once in a lifetime but I have to put up platforms for great horned owls that have come into the area and I believe they killed the family of barred owls I had gotten close to."
Interact with them? Please! The Barred Owls weren’t connected to him in any sense ― they were enticed and teased into accepting a regular food source, and that's a very bad thing. Reputable bird rehab facilities do just the opposite with young birds, as they do not want them imprinting on humans.
Long ago I came across a nature photographer's ethical stance I found quite compelling. The photographer is Ryan Schain of Massachusetts. Here's his take on baiting wildlife:
"Feeding wildlife or luring them with food in order to get them close enough to photograph is a dangerous and unacceptable practice. Some animals around the country are so used to receiving food from humans that they get dangerously close to campsites and hikers. These habituated creatures are more likely to be struck by cars in human areas, shot by police because of their proximity to people, and many other negative things. Also, an animal that has been habituated to humans is much more likely to strike at a human rather than flee."
I wholeheartedly agree. Ryan's other points are good ones and I highly recommend reading his entire take on ethical nature photography at his devianart.com page. His is akin to the ethical standards I adhere to. As Ryan points out, you'll be much prouder of your photography when keeping disturbances to wildlife to an absolute minimum. We should not interfere with their important daily routines. This is true whether I'm photographing an owl, treehopper, or wildflower. Ryan closes with:
"Observe wildlife from a distance. Don’t attempt to interact with, feed, distract, taunt, or spook the animals. Keeping to these rules is much more fulfilling in the long run. You know your photographs aren’t contrived in any way, and the animals in them are going about their business undisturbed."
Amen, brother.