More Grizzly Bear Hunt notes

The campaign to put a halt to the grizzly bear hunt in British Columbia continues to grow, and this week features a visual petition by conservation photographer Andrew Wright. The "Faltering Light" Visual petition is a coffee table photography book sponsored by more than 40 Canadian organizations that will feature your signatures and will be delivered in person to government officials, including the Premier of British Columbia.

Now is the time to step up and sign a petition if you've been waffling about doing so, as this one may garner the most attention of all. If you think it's time British Columbia stopped allowing the trophy hunt (because that's what it is) of BC's grizzly bears, then please take a few seconds and electronically sign the petition.

A grizzly family in the Great Bear Rainforest near Bella Bella, British Columbia

Thanks to Andrew for taking this bold step, let's hope it results in some progress with government in the fight to stop this unnecessary hunt.

Cheers,

John

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Canadian Prairies Wildlife Photography update on Facebook

I've updated my Facebook fan page with another new gallery this morning called Prairie Critters which features wildlife photography from the Canadian Prairies.

Enjoy!

John

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John E Marriott Canadian Wildlife and Nature Photography on Facebook and Twitter

Seems I've finally given in to technology and much to my chagrin, I now have a Facebook fan page under John E. Marriott Wildlife and Nature Photography and can now also be found on Twitter under John E. Marriott for those of you that want to follow me that closely.

Both steps represent another slow, painful death for the old John, the one who boldly went about town with no cell phone until just three years ago. And while I'm still not sold on Twitter, I do admit that putting together photo albums for the Facebook page is far easier than doing it here on my blog, so those of you that join that page will get to see a lot of photos that aren't even available yet here on wildernessprints.com.

Also wanted to send out a quick reminder for anyone interested in attending my Wildlife Photography Seminar in Calgary this Saturday, February 13th. Registration is almost full, so sign up now if you haven't already.

And finally, I now have a Canon 1D Mk IV in my hands and my initial reactions to it are mixed. With my 70-200 lens the results have been fantastic, but the shots with my 500mm lens have been quite poor so far. Not sure why, but I'll post my findings in a week or two after more testing.

Happy shooting!

John

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Canadian Landscape Photography Contest

I've been slacking off on my blogging of late, choosing to chase wolves instead for an article I'll be writing later this year for Outdoor Photography Canada magazine on how to photograph wolves in the wild.

However, while I've been off shooting, my partners in SNAP! Nature Photography Seminars, Darwin Wiggett and Sam Chrysanthou, have been busy putting together a photo contest to promote our April weekend seminar in Canmore, Alberta. They've organized a Canadian Landscape Photo Contest on Darwin's blog which is open to anyone and includes some great prizes, like free participation in the seminar! Check it out for more info....

Abandoned grain elevators in Mossleigh, Alberta

There is lots of news on the wolf front here in Banff National Park of late, too. Unfortunately, it's not all good. After the demise of the Bow Valley wolf family in the past year and a half, we were very fortunate to have two new wolf families establish themselves in the park recently. However, this past week, one wolf from each pack was lost on Banff's roads.

Is it a case of "Here we go again?" Let's hope not, but the fact one of the wolves was the alpha female of the new Tunnel-Spray pack is not a good sign just as mating season goes into full swing.

Raven, one of the yearling pups of the new Pipestone wolf family, was killed recently near Lake Louise

I have been in several meetings with Parks Canada researchers and wardens in the past month trying to determine what steps can be taken to end these needless accidents.

Stay tuned for more information.

John

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A Tribute to Delinda

On the eve of Canadian Geographic's cover shot of Delinda, I have put together a new story in my Storybook Gallery about Delinda and the rest of the Bow Valley wolf pack, featuring a collection of some of my favourite wolf photographs from the past two years.

Delinda skirting the edge of a meadow

CBC has also posted an article online on CBC News about Delinda, the cover shot, and some of my comments about her death and what it means to me and to the Bow Valley.

The timing is interesting as we near some of the most important planning and management decisions in years concerning our first (and many would argue, most important) national park, Banff National Park. I encourage you to visit Parks Canada's website and voice your opinions about the draft management plan. The draft plan is woefully inadequate to support any sustained ecological integrity in the park, and suprisingly talks about increasing visitation in the park, which is NOT Parks Canada's mandate. Rather, they need to be concerned about making visiting the park a better experience for those that do come here, while at the same time putting far more effort into ensuring that our wolves and grizzlies do not continue to die on our roads and railways. This whole "if we pretend we're doing something about it then no one will question us" attitude needs to change immediately, the status quo is no longer acceptable.

Please consider writing a Letter to the Editor of either the Banff Crag & Canyon or the Rocky Mountain Outlook, as well as sending an email directly to Mike Murtha with Parks Canada.

John

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New Seminars and CBC Radio

CBC Radio in Alberta will be airing an interview with me this Thursday, November 19th between 12 and 12:30 p.m. (over lunch) on Wild Rose Country with Donna McElligott on Delinda, the wolf on the cover of the upcoming Canadian Geographic issue.

And after the success of my first two seminars with The Camera Store (this Saturday's 'Getting Wild about Photography with John E. Marriott' is also sold out), we've decided to offer my seminars again in February for anyone that missed the first two.

Getting Wild about Photography will be offered on Saturday, February 13th from 1-3 p.m. and How to Self-Publish (and actually make money at it) is scheduled to run on Saturday, February 27th from 1:30-3:30 p.m.

I also just learned yesterday that my insurance for my new tour off-shoot for my company has been approved, so stay tuned for tour information for a number of high profile and exciting trips in 2010 in early January.

Two polar bear buddies relaxing after a playfight

The destinations I hope to start with for 2010 include trips to Churchill to photograph polar bears, a trip to Princess Royal Island in BC to photograph white kermode bears, a trip to a remote location in BC to photograph mountain grizzlies, and a trip to Nunavut north of the Arctic Circle to photograph caribou, musk-ox and if we're lucky, tundra wolves.

Cheers,

John

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Christmas Book Orders and Calgary Signings

Chapters-Indigo is currently offering all of my books at 25-35% off for all online orders in North America before Christmas. The books make excellent Christmas presents and at those discounts, you can get all 4, plus free shipping, for just over $80 Cdn. Check out the Products section of this website for more information on the books, or order books online from www.chapters.ca.

For those of you in the Calgary area, I'm doing three big book signings in November and December, beginning with a signing next weekend on Saturday, November 14th from 1-5 p.m. at the Indigo CrossIron Mills in Rocky View (the massive new mall north of the city). If you want a personalized copy of any of my books for yourself or as gifts, this will be an excellent opportunity to do so. And if you just want to stop by and say hi, please do!

I'm also doing signings in the city of Calgary on Saturday, December 5th at Chapters Dalhousie from 12:30-3 p.m. and on Sunday, December 13th at Indigo Signal Hill from 1-5 p.m.

Here are a few sample page layouts from the most recent books, The Canadian Rockies: Banff, Jasper & Beyond, which comes in two editions, large and small:

Pages 4-5

Pages 20-21 of 96 pages

Stay tuned later this week for more polar bear images from last November, along with some spring grizzly bear shots from this past May and June.

I will also be posting further news of another Self-Publishing seminar in Calgary in February after the success of my first one this past Saturday which sold out and was packed to the hilt. Thanks to everyone that managed to come out! For those of you that don`t have access to Calgary seminars, I have been thinking of posting this seminar online as a purchaseable pdf e-booklet. Let me know if this would interest any of you.

Btw, a final note for anyone using Internet Explorer: IE is not a colour-managed browser, so if the colours of my photos or books online look ridiculously saturated, it`s not my photos or your monitor, it`s Internet Explorer. Try Firefox or Safari or just about anything else and you`ll be amazed how much more real the colours look as you surf the web.

Cheers,

John

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