Wildlife Photography Research Articles

A web-based digital camera for monitoring remote wildlife

Passive and active infrared camera systems and, more recently, videography have been used in wildlife research to assist in data collection. Traditional camera systems can be expensive and labor-intensive, and are limited in operation time by film length and battery life. Current camera systems are neither computer- nor network-oriented and do not allow for near real-time retrieval and storage of data. We describe a web-based, digital camera system for monitoring wildlife in remote, inaccessible environments. Between February 2002 and December 2003, our web-based camera system collected 486 digital photographs of west Texas wildlife. The key advantage of our camera system is that it allows for unobtrusive monitoring of secretive and often unobservable species in their natural habitat. Because our system is web-based, high-resolution photographs of wildlife can be posted on a web page for viewing, offering a unique teaching tool for grade school and university students who may not have the opportunity to visit these remote, inaccessible areas. Although our camera system was expensive ($12,000 U.S.), it offers a self-sustaining technique for monitoring wildlife in remote regions that allows for easy data retrieval and storage.

Trophy Shots: Early North American Photographs of Nonhuman Animals and the Display of Masculine Prowess

AbstractThis essay examines the relationship between the display of non-human animal trophies and masculinity through an analysis of progressive-era American wildlife photography. In the 1890s, North American animal photographers began circulating their images in sporting journals and describing their practice as a form of hunting. These camera hunters exhibited their photographs as proof of sportsmanship, virility, and hunting prowess.

Human-caused Disturbance Stimuli as a Form of Predation Risk

A growing number of studies quantify the impact of nonlethal human disturbance on the behavior and reproductive success of animals. Athough many are well designed and analytically sophisticated, most lack a theoretical framework for making predictions and for understanding why particular responses occur. Behavioral ecologists have recently begun to fill this theoretical vacuum by applying economic models of antipredator behavior to disturbance studies. In this emerging paradigm, predation and nonlethal disturbance stimuli create similar trade-offs between avoiding perceived risk and other fitness-enhancing activities, such as feeding, parental care, or mating. A vast literature supports the hypothesis that antipredator behavior has a cost to other activities, and that this trade-off is optimized when investment in antipredator behavior tracks short-term changes in predation risk. Prey have evolved antipredator responses to generalized threatening stimuli, such as loud noises and rapidly approaching objects. Thus, when encountering disturbance stimuli ranging from the dramatic, lowflying helicopter to the quiet wildlife photographer, animal responses are likely to follow the same economic principles used by prey encountering predators. Some authors have argued that, similar to predation risk, disturbance stimuli can indirectly affect fitness and population dynamics via the energetic and lost opportunity costs of risk avoidance. We elaborate on this argument by discussing why, from an evolutionary perspective, disturbance stimuli should be analogous to predation risk. We then consider disturbance effects on the behavior of individuals—vigilance, fleeing, habitat selection, mating displays, and parental investment—as well as indirect effects on populations and communities. A wider application of predation risk theory to disturbance studies should increase the generality of predictions and make mitigation more effective without over-regulating human activities.

The Grizzly Almanac: A Fully Illustrated Natural and Cultural History of America's Great Bear

Grizzly! For many people, even the mention of this bear's name strikes fear into the heart and a furtive glance over the shoulder, expecting a ravenous giant to come crashing through the bushes. Even its species name, Ursus arctos horribilis, sounds frightening. For others, this awe-inspiring carnivore represents the true nature of wilderness and is a creature to be respected, admired, and carefully coexisted with. In either case, The Grizzly Almanac is a carefully researched, expertly written volume that will serve to educate and inform about the largest terrestrial carnivore in North America. And, as we all know, a little knowledge goes a long way to dissipate fear. Busch is an admitted admirer of the grizzly bear, and his book is written from a point of view sympathetic to their plight; loss of habitat, over-hunting, and misunderstanding have led to a precipitous decline in numbers. However, his bias toward the great bear does not become readily apparent until the final chapter of the book, which informs the reader of conservation measures and current plans to keep this fascinating species from becoming extinct. The earlier parts of the book are an objective look at the bear and provide sort of an “all-you-want-to-know” approach to this creature. He carefully and clearly describes what is known about the evolution and biology of the bear and details its reproduction and dietary habits (right down to the average size of the teeth and claws!). He describes the research and efforts that have gone into understanding hibernation and the hyperphagia (eating almost everything in sight—but don’t worry, it's mostly interested in berries and carrion) that precedes it. From the straightforward biology of the bear he goes on to describe their intelligence and what is known about the bears’ social interactions with each other, with other predators, and finally with man. He details the mythology of the grizzly in Native American culture, the initial sightings and interactions by European and later North American explorers and trappers, and even a few famous grizzlies and those who hunted them. Finally, there is the requisite chapter on grizzly attacks, an emotionally charged but fascinating topic. Busch explains the best research on attacks and the causes of them (most often bears that have been habituated to feeding on human garbage). He gives research-based recommendations on how to avoid being attacked and what to do if you are. There is a balanced discussion on firearms and pepper spray. Several attacks are described in detail and analyzed. Anyone who wishes to share the wilderness with grizzlies would do well to heed the information in this chapter. And then there are the pictures! Plentiful and expertly taken photographs of grizzlies and every aspect of their daily lives appear throughout this work. Although not advertised as a wildlife photography book, this volume will not disappoint those who wish to see close-ups and various poses of this beast in action. For that reason alone it is worth having this book on your coffee table. Randomly opening the book to almost any page yields a well-chosen photograph and a few accompanying paragraphs that even taken out of context from the rest of the book will enhance your knowledge of the great bear. It's a great book to browse. If you are a bear lover (as I am!) or travel in places where these magnificent creatures are still found, then you ought to have this book. Even if you hate and fear these creatures, if you’re afraid they’re going to eat you and your livestock, you ought to have this book—perhaps you’ll change your mind.

Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans.

Much research indicates that East Asians, more than Americans, explain events with reference to the context. The authors examined whether East Asians also attend to the context more than Americans do. In Study 1, Japanese and Americans watched animated vignettes of underwater scenes and reported the contents. In a subsequent recognition test, they were shown previously seen objects as well as new objects, either in their original setting or in novel settings, and then were asked to judge whether they had seen the objects. Study 2 replicated the recognition task using photographs of wildlife. The results showed that the Japanese (a) made more statements about contextual information and relationships than Americans did and (b) recognized previously seen objects more accurately when they saw them in their original settings rather than in the novel settings, whereas this manipulation had relatively little effect on Americans.

The British Gas Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The British Gas Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Sierra Nevada: the naturalist's companion

This is an updated edition of Verna Johnston's guide for a natural history trip into the Sierra, originally published in 1970. A professional biologist, veteran ornithologist and well-known wildlife photographer, Johnston begins in the western foothills and evokes a picture of the varied plant and animal life encountered as the elevation increases. The reader is guided through chaparral and mountain meadows, pine and fir forests, granite expanses and snowy peaks. Johnston writes of the Native Americans' uses and stewardship of the land, the role of fire in forest ecology, the eras of sheep herders and loggers, the work of John Muir and other preservationists and the battles to save Mono Lake and Lake Tahoe. Her lifetime of field experiences and discovery offers intimate observations of rarely recorded events: the courtship of the Sierra Nevada salamander, a wolverine attacking two bears, a fight to the death between a skunk and a scorpion. Many changes have occurred in the Sierra since the first edition of this book was published, including acid snow, tensions involving human and cougar habitats, and an ominous drop in amphibian populations. Johnston documents these events and updates the ecological research.

The large macaws: their care, breeding and conservation

The large macaws: their care, breeding and conservation

Walker's bats of the world

From the African long-tongued fruit bat to the wrinkle-faced bat of Mexico and Central America, Walker's Bats of the World is an astonishingly complete guide to this fascinating, beneficial, and varied order of mammals. It includes scientific and common names, as well as the number and distribution of species, measurements and physical traits, habitat, daily and seasonal activity, population dynamics, home range, social life, reproduction, and longevity. Textual summaries present accurate, well-documented descriptions of the physical characteristics and living habits of bats in every part of the world. Endangered species and those having singular economic importance are given particular attention. Through five highly praised editions Walker's Mammals of the World has remained the most comprehensive-the preeminent-reference work on mammals. Now for the first time a single large segment of that encyclopedic work-the section on Chiroptera, or bats-is available in paperback as a separate volume. Lavishly illustrated with pictures by noted wildlife photographers, the book includes photographs of many rarely seen bats. As in the complete Walker's Mammals, most photographic illustrations depictlive animals rather than skins or skeletons. Since publication of the first edition in 1964, Walker's Mammals of the World has become a favorite guide to the natural world for general readers and an invaluable reference for professionals. Now Walker's Bats makes a significant portion of that work accessible to a new audience

William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape. By Peter B. Hales. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania William L. Finley: Pioneer Wildlife Photographer. By Worth Mathewson. Corvallis Eliot Porter. By Eliot Porter. Foreword by Martha A. Sandweiss. Boston, Massachusetts

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsWilliam Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape. By Peter B. Hales. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania William L. Finley: Pioneer Wildlife Photographer. By Worth Mathewson. Corvallis Eliot Porter. By Eliot Porter. Foreword by Martha A. Sandweiss. Boston, MassachusettsF. Jack HurleyF. Jack Hurley Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 33, Number 4October 1989 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/4005163 Journal History This article was published in the Journal of Forest History (1974-1989), which was continued by Forest & Conservation History (1990-1995). © 1989 Forest History Society, Inc. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

William L. Finley, Pioneer Wildlife Photographer Worth Mathewson

William L. Finley, Pioneer Wildlife Photographer Worth Mathewson

Safari. The East African Diaries of a Wildlife Photographer. Nigel Sitwell

<i>Safari. The East African Diaries of a Wildlife Photographer</i>. Nigel Sitwell

An Analysis of Participation in Nonconsumptive Wildlife Recreation

One of the roles of recreation economics in public policy is to demonstrate the magnitude and economic value of outdoor activities which do not register their importance through market transactions. In pursuing this research, economists can now argue the economic value of harvesting wildlife stocks for recreation purposes; for example, salmon fishing (Brown et al. 1965), duck hunting (Hammack and Brown 1974), and deer hunting (Gum and Martin 1975). There has been relative neglect of the nonconsumptive uses of wildlife such as bird-watching, wildlife watching, and wildlife photography. The impact of public policy on wildlife abundance and nonconsumptive wildlife recreation is determined by the responsiveness of users to changes in publicly controlled natural resources, such as habitat and stocks of wildlife. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of the nature and quantity of nonconsumptive wildlife recreation.

"Original" and Other Sins

We are all familiar with the old chestnut of original sin. Teachers invoke it to avoid the responsibility for their results as reflected in their students' performances. High school teachers say, What could I do? They just weren't prepared at the intermediate level. Intermediate teachers shift the responsibility to elementary teachers who blame the homeparental environment, and the parents are left with only original sin as an excuse for their children's performances in school. Now we are all confronted with an alarming new problem: the change in attitude toward self-improvement by the new and younger biology teachers. We old mossbacks have integrated our professional with our personal lives. Our hobbies, our reading, our part-time jobs, our vacations, even our family lives, have been closely associated with our biology teaching. Many new teachers leave their interest in biology locked in their desks at the end of the school day. They need something different to supplement their lives outside school. Hobbies are more apt to be hanggliding than wildlife photography. Summer vacations and jobs often reflect interests completely divorced from their teaching field. All too frequently these people drop out of biology, and even teaching, to pursue their other interests. To put it bluntly, too many of them lack a genuine love for and interest in the very thing they are trying to sell to their students. When you talk to college instructors, administrators, and other members of our profession about this problem, all too often they invoke original sin. It must be a result of the high school teachers' attitudes, or education on the intermediate level and so on. We need a new approach because there are flaws in our reasoning. Rather than going back to original sin, let's look forward toward the teachers' last points of contact with the educational system, teacher preparation programs. Have we become so involved in the battles between the education departments and the biology departments over who should control what that no one is providing leadership in these programs? Is there more than a slight possibility that the college and university professors may be a major part of this problem? Perhaps their teaching has become too slanted toward the students. Students pursuing or interested in pursuing doctoral degrees have become the prize students. Too often these students find that the only place to do their prized research is at a university where their teaching is aimed at more students. This is an example of educational incest at its worst. A few of these people are natural teachers and like that part of their work, but many others are just the opposite. The new Ph.D. with no teacher training, or even a desire to teach, is usually assigned responsibility for the large introductory course. Thus, the area that needs instructors with the highest level of teaching ability to maintain and nurture student interest in biology receives instructors with the least experience and ability to inspire. Because the instructor doesn't like this part of the job, s/he shifts as much of it as possible to the teaching assistants. These people, also, are overworked and uninterested in teaching. They are mainly interested in earning their doctorates so that they can enter the academic research world where they, in turn, will be assigned large, introductory classes that they can pass on to their assistants. Is it any wonder that the prospective biology teachers start to lose interest in their intended profession? On every side, they hear that research is the ideal; teaching is for those who just can't make it in research. And, they definitely have not seen many outstanding or even good examples of teaching at this supposed highest level of the profession. At this point, the prospective biology teachers turn to the education departments seeking the training they want and need. They experience three years of educational philosophy, history, psychology, measurements, reading problems, bilingual problems, behavioral problems-mostly taught by people who haven't set foot in a public school since they left the 12th grade. Then comes the dawn. No one has mentioned one word about how to teach biology and how to deal with its many current, complex problems. The only example they have to follow is how they were taught in college courses. The circle is closed.

Early Wildlife Photographers, by C.A.W. Guggisberg. David &amp; Charles, £4.95

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Wildlife Photography: a Field Guide, by Eric Hosking and John Gooders. Hutchinson, £2.95.

Wildlife Photography: a Field Guide, by Eric Hosking and John Gooders. Hutchinson, £2.95.

An Automatic Movie Camera for Wildlife Photography

A camera system for photographing short movie sequences of wildlife activity is described. The system consists of an electrically actuated 16-mm movie camera, a photoelectric cell trigger, and a light source for illuminating the photographic field. This camera system has been used to study noc- turnal mammal activity, particularly raccoon (Procyon lotor) and skunk (Mephitis mephitis) move- ments in and out of large southwestern bat caves. It can be used with ordinary white light or with infrared light.

Birds of the Day

THERE is a well-known saying that great things arise from small beginnings, and this is true of modern bird photography, which began in those seemingly remote days when a stand camera was the only instrument for all types of photography. There is some dispute as to who took the first wild-life photographs. The names of Riley Fortune, Oliver Lodge and C. J. King, of the Scilly Isles, are among those of the pioneers. They worked with their heads under a black cloth, and their plates were so slow that they could only give a really fast exposure under exceptionally good lighting conditions. Yet they achieved some remarkable results, and when the Kearton brothers perfected the system of working from a hide, nature photography, and in particular the photography of birds, made rapid strides and attained wide popularity.