Photographing animals in captivity; the ethics.
Photographing animals that are held captive, is that okay? It is Ethics awareness month, so let’s talk about it. I’d like to inform you that ethics is fluid and can look different for you and me. This is my take on this issue, and if you feel differently about it, you are allowed to. I’d love to hear your opinion too!
My general take on animals in captivity
In general, I will say that I do not agree with keeping animals in captivity, like in zoos where they only have so much space to move around. But I think there are different levels in that too, There are zoos that are giant and have given the captive animals a habitat that is catered to their needs and are much like their natural habitat. These zoos can easily be put in a different category from the zoos that keep the animals captive in smaller unnatural or concrete habitats. I do not 100% agree with either but prefer the bigger zoos for obvious reasons. Then there are also zoos that put at least a percentage of their profits towards sustainability, conservation & research projects, which is what zoos are supposed to be doing in my opinion. Whether or not they are supporting any initiatives can often be found on their website.
Game reserves are zoos?
I’ve recently heard some people arguing that (private) game reserves or national parks (in Africa, like Kruger) are also zoos, and I must say that I don’t agree with this. For this blog, I will be talking about the game reserves where hunting is prohibited, technically making them nature reserves. Only they’re still widely known as game reserves even when hunting for game is prohibited.
A game reserve, private or not, is a protected piece of nature to preserve the habitat of these wild animals. The animals are protected here against poachers, which they do by monitoring closely, but other than this, the animals live as real wild animals in their own habitat. They must hunt and are hunted; animals in a game reserve are not fed like all animals are in the zoo. The difference between a private game reserve and a public one/national park is that a private game reserve is privately managed, and for you to visit it as a guest, you must stay in the lodge that belongs to the owners.
A private game reserve will usually be the size of a city like Paris or Amsterdam. National parks or ‘public’ game reserves will range between being the size of these same cities to being as big as half of the Netherlands, my home country. Zoos are of course much smaller than these reserves & parks as they’re usually in a city.
All 3 photos taken in national parks in South Africa.
Zoos for educational purposes
Here is, I think, where the conversation can become difficult because zoos can be an amazing opportunity to teach our kids about the different habitats and livelihoods of animals. Textbooks don’t always do it, though well-made documentaries that are created for kids can be of much help here too. In my home country, we had this TV show ‘Freek in het wild’ where biologist Freek Vonk taught children about various animals. He was kind of a Dutch Steve Erwin! His program had the purpose of educating kids, and this was evident in the terms he used and the excitement with which he presented. As a kid, I loved watching this show, and it sufficiently fed my fascination for animals, though I did still go to the zoo growing up. The zoo was a different level of experience for me; I felt close to the animals
Photographing zoo animals
Paying a visit to the zoo with your camera can be a great way to practice photographing animals, especially if you live in a country where wildlife is scarce. Because wildlife/animal photography is difficult, when photographing people, you can communicate with them, direct them into poses, or give them prompts for what to do. With animals, you obviously can’t, and though photographing in a zoo is still very different from wildlife photography, I think it can still be a good way to practice. As a photographer based in the Netherlands, there are about 2 places I can go to in my country where I could photograph wildlife, and that wildlife would be mostly deer. if I’m lucky, maybe a fox, and if I’m really really lucky, a wolf. And don’t get me wrong, photographing deer is fun, but I want to practice with other animals too. Personally I don’t visit the zoo nearly as often as I used to when I was a kid, but recently, I visited to prepare a little for my trip to South Africa later this year; I wanted content to practice my editing on as editing animals is very different from editing landscapes in my experience.
All photos taken in the zoo of Rotterdam, Blijdorp.
Can you call it wildlife photography?
In the simplest of answers, no. The animals are not wild animals and therefore it’s not wildlife photography, it has some aspects of it which can make it a good practice but there is so much more to wildlife photography. Wildlife photography usually means hours of being patient because there’s no animal on display for you to easily find and photograph. Wildlife photography includes getting to know the habits of the animals your photographing, knowing the signs they show when they’re not comfortable with your presense. It’s another level of connecting with them all together.
