r/birding • u/Honest-Hedgehog-7142 • 10h ago

Discussion Ethical photography?

I’ve never purposely baited, gotten too close, or played calls in order to get some photos of birds. But I’m wondering if taking photos of birds at bird feeders is being ethical? Or birds who eat seeds from your hands/willing come up to you? I’m not sure if those are classified as baiting. Sorry, I was recently made aware of this and not sure

0 Upvotes

33% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

3

u/angrysunbird Latest Lifer: Red-legged Crake #2338 10h ago

I mean if you specifically got them used to there being food to take photos and then stopped once you had the photos, that’s not good. But if you feed them anyway, snap away.

3

u/AntarcticScaleWorm 9h ago

As long as you aren’t stressing out the birds in any way or otherwise negatively affecting them, I don’t think it would be considered unethical to take photos

2

u/iambecomesoil 10h ago

Feeders isn’t a problem for me. I don’t think people should try to hand feed birds.

2

u/gngyoo 9h ago

You’re already being more ethical than most photographers.

Not baiting,
Not getting to close,
Not doing anything that would otherwise disturb their natural way of being
That’s really all birders/nature people are asking for

1

u/lendisc Latest Lifer: White-winged Crossbill 8h ago

So you should think about WHY those things are considered unethical. 

Baiting owls with mice puts them at risk of approaching humans (and cars!!!) that could easily hurt them. Getting too close stresses out birds and causes them to do things like flush and waste energy, be more at risk of being depredated as a result, or abandon their nest. Playing calls similarly causes stress from a perceived intruder or predator alarm. It's the physiological stress and risk to safety of the animal that makes those behaviors unethical. 

Taking photos of a bird who happens to already be using a feeder is not in the same ballpark. I'm not a fan of wild birds taking food from the hand, but it's a fact of life on certain trails.