John E Marriott's Canadian Wildlife and Nature Photography Blog

Canadian Landscape Photography Contest

2010-01-26T18:50:00.007-07:00

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

A Tribute to Delinda

2009-11-19T19:17:00.006-07:00

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

New Seminars and CBC Radio

2009-11-18T10:55:00.005-07:00

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

Christmas Book Orders and Calgary Signings

2009-11-08T22:43:00.010-07:00

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

Canadian Geographic Cover

2009-11-05T13:09:00.007-07:00

It's official! The December issue of Canadian Geographic magazine will feature this image of mine of Delinda, a wild wolf that I came to know very well over the course of a few years, on the cover:

I knew I was in the running for the cover about two weeks ago when the photo editor for the magazine called me and asked for my permission to put two of my images of Delinda in the online 'cover vote' that they do with subscribers to confirm their selection of each month's cover.

My two images (see below) were up against a red fox.

Fortunately for me, the readers chose one of the images of Delinda, though as this week's Banff Crag & Canyon article on the cover selection suggests, I wasn't sure I'd win. In fact, I was pretty sure that my two wolf images would saw each other off at the pass in the voting, handing the next cover to the image of the red fox.

Thankfully I was wrong! It's my first cover of Canadian Geographic magazine, though I've had several covers with them for their catalogs and calendars over the years and am quite regularly published in the magazine via my stock photography agents.

The Canadian Geographic website is also doing a feature story on the cover shot and on my experiences with Delinda, the former matriarch of the Bow Valley wolf pack who died tragically on the Trans-Canada Highway a year ago. You can read more about her untimely death in the article below from Macleans magazine in September 2008 (click on the picture to see the full-size article).

A year later and Delinda's death is still no easier for me to take. Every time I drive the Bow Valley Parkway I'm reminded of the cherished time I got to spend watching and photographing her and her pack. Her death signaled a changing of the pack structure and the beginning of chaos amid the Bow Valley wolves. Today, 14 months after her death, more than half her pack has been killed just like she was on the busy roads of Banff National Park, Canada's supposed 'flagship' national park. And with no sightings of any members of the pack in the past few months, no one is even sure if any of them are still alive.

Since this coming December issue is the special first anniversary of Canadian Geographic's annual Wildlife-only issue and one of the topics in the magazine will be the state of wildlife conservation in Canada, I think it's very fitting that this iconic image of Delinda, one that already greets millions of Banff visitors from the back of one of the town's hybrid buses, will be gracing the cover of Canada's most-read nature magazine.

I can only hope her picture and her story lead to an improvement in how wildlife is managed (an oxymoron in itself) in our national parks.

SNAP! Photo Seminars

2009-11-04T16:11:00.006-07:00

I am thrilled to announce that this coming April I am teaming up with renowned professional nature photographers Darwin Wiggett and Samantha Chrysanthou to offer a great weekend SNAP! Photography Seminar, called Mastering Digital Nature Photography from Capture to Commerce, in Canmore, Alberta, Canada.

Mastering Digital Nature Photography from Capture to Commerce will run from Friday, April 23rd to Monday, April 26th, with the two primary instructional seminar days being the Saturday and the Sunday. It's going to be geared at all levels of photography and will be a fantastic weekend for all involved. Please check out the site and feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Hope to see you here in Canmore!

John

Polar Bear Pictures

2009-11-02T14:14:00.005-07:00

A year ago, as a test trip as part of a Canadian wildlife photography tour company that I'm launching in 2010, I visited Churchill, Manitoba along with a few colleagues. We braved -40 temperatures and five days of blizzards, but got some absolutely fabulous opportunities with the polar bears.

This is the first sneak peek at the polar bear pictures (the best are yet to come!). Enjoy!

A young polar bear bedded down in a snow drift

An adult polar bear pops up for a look at us

Mother and cub in a winter blizzard

Large adult polar bear having a snooze on the ice

A polar bear crosses the vast tundra beneath stormy skies

Two polar bears spar (playfight)

A mother polar bear and her yearling cub cross the tundra beneath sunny skies

For more information and updates on my new tour company launching in 2010, please stay tuned here on my blog.

Cheers,

John

Wildlife Photography Instructional Seminar - November 21st

2009-10-31T12:39:00.006-06:00

I will be speaking all about wildlife photography, from tips, tricks and techniques, to essential must-have gear and my favourite locations, at the Gary Campbell Studio in Calgary, Saturday, November 21st, 2009 from 1-3 p.m.

If you're interested, you can sign up online at The Camera Store's website.

The Camera Store has also posted a video of me from last weekend's Western Canada Digital Photo Expo, so check that out when you have time (just ignore the supremely shiny bald head! Ha-ha!).

Stay tuned for updates on more seminars, field workshops, and new pictures in the coming days and weeks.

Cheers,

John

Speaking at Calgary Digital Photo Expo, October 24-25, 2009

2009-10-24T08:49:00.002-06:00

As usual, late, LATE notice, but I'm speaking twice each day at the Western Canada Digital Photo Expo in Calgary, Alberta. At noon today and tomorrow (Sunday), I'm doing 'How to Make a Million Dollars in Nature Photography' and at 1:45 p.m. each day, I'm doing 'Top Ten Lessons I've Learned in Outdoor Photography.'

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming Presentations in Canmore and Calgary

2009-10-16T09:48:00.005-06:00

I'll be presenting 'A Day in the Life of a Wildlife Photographer' at the Canmore Collegiate High School theatre this Saturday (tomorrow), October 17th at 2 pm as part of Canmore's Festival of Eagles. A day pass to all the presentations is $20 and includes a chance to get up-close and personal with a host of raptors and birds of prey (and sorry for the late notice, I have had this booked for several months now, but brain-cramped on actually putting it on my blog!).

The public relations director at the Royal Alberta Museum said that 'A Day in the Life of a Wildlife Photographer' was "the best presentation [they've] hosted in the four years [he's] been doing this." So feel free to come and see me shake like a leaf as I try to live up to that lofty billing ;-)

The following weekend, on Saturday, October 24th and Sunday, October 25th, I will be speaking twice each day at the national Digital Photo Expo in Calgary, Alberta. My topics each day will be 'How to Make a Million Dollars in Nature Photography' and 'The Top Ten Lessons I've Learned in Outdoor Photography'. For a complete schedule and times I'll be speaking, please visit The Camera Store's website. Tix for a weekend pass are just $15 and last year they had 9,000 people attend, so get there early if you want a good seat to either of my talks each day (note that I repeat each talk on the second day, so you can catch me either Saturday or Sunday).

Happy Shooting!

John

Globe and Mail article on the plight of British Columbia's Grizzlies

2009-09-09T16:34:00.004-06:00

The Globe and Mail, Canada's largest and most respected newspaper, published an article today on the plight of British Columbia's grizzlies and black bears all along the coast as the salmon runs continue to dry up. It's a disturbing article that's well worth a read.

And it's further proof that British Columbia's government is living in the dark ages by continuing to allow a grizzly bear hunt.

John

Stop the Grizzly Bear Hunt in BC

2009-09-08T10:20:00.004-06:00

Hello all. I've been wanting to write about the grizzly bear hunt in British Columbia for a long time now, but I never seem to have the time. So in the meantime, I'm posting a wonderful link to a website dedicated to stopping the grizzly bear hunt in BC before the 2010 Olympics by putting an enormous amount of pressure on the BC government to embarrass them prior to being on the world stage.

A grizzly bear eating salmon in the Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia

Grizzly bears are near and dear to my heart. So please visit http://stopthegrizzlyhunt.org when you can and write a letter or an email or even just pass the link along to friends.

Please stay tuned in coming months for more on this topic as I ramp up my own efforts to bring attention to this timely matter.

Thanks,

John

NEW Canadian Rockies Book

2009-08-21T11:19:00.004-06:00

My two new Canadian Rockies books, The Canadian Rockies: Banff, Jasper & Beyond (available in two sizes) are now available on my website in the Books section. Feel free to check out sample page layouts from the book, as well as the official press release.

NEW Canadian Rockies Book

As always, all of my books are available at a great discount for orders from anywhere in the world from Indigo-Chapters online.

Cheers!

John

Book Signing in Banff - Wednesday, July 22nd, 4-6 pm

2009-07-14T18:01:00.004-06:00

A quick note to announce that the official launch of my two newest books, both titled, The Canadian Rockies: Banff, Jasper & Beyond, will be this coming Wednesday, July 22nd from 4-6 pm at Banff Indigospirit in Cascade Plaza in Banff, Alberta. This event is open to the public and Indigo is discounting all of my books by 20% for the launch. Please click on the image below for more details.

Stay tuned for more details on the new books in the near future, but in the meantime, you can order the books from Chapters (they ship orders around the world).

Hope to see you there!

John

Wildlife Photography Presentation - BBC International Wildlife Photographer of the Year touring exhibit

2009-07-14T10:35:00.003-06:00

I will be presenting a wildlife photography talk entitled, A Day in the Life of a Wildlife Photographer, at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, Alberta on Sunday, July 19th at 1:30 pm as part of the touring exhibit of the BBC's International Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

This presentation is open to the public.

Cheers,

John

Book Signing in Canmore, July 1st, Cafe Books, 3 pm

2009-06-24T23:53:00.002-06:00

Just a quick note that I will be signing my two new Canadian Rockies books, along with all of my other books, at Cafe Books on Main Street in Canmore on Canada Day at 3 pm. Hope that at least some of you can make it down to say hi and check out the new books.

On another note, I'm in the final days of my loon photography workshops near Kamloops, BC, and they've been an incredible success. We've had a total of 8 participants (we had 4 spots for each workshop) from all over North America (Alberta, Connecticut, New York, California, etc) and there have been a plethora of wildlife photo opportunities: we've watched three loon nests hatch (another two to go), and we've photographed loons, moose, marmots, bluebirds, flickers, three-toed woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, and a host of other species in absolutely incredible settings. I can honestly say that the quality and length of the various wildlife encounters has far surpassed my expectations.

I have two more workshops this fall with the same company, Nature Photo Tours, so stay tuned on this blog for upcoming information on those tours.

Cheers, John

Focus on the Rockies III - Photography Workshop - September 4-7, 2009

2009-06-09T15:52:00.003-06:00

Join me and renowned Canadian landscape photographers Daryl Benson and Jeremy Jackson in Jasper National Park from September 4th-7th for Focus on the Rockies III, Canada's premiere nature photography workshop for novice and intermediate amateur photographers.

Ice chunks floating in Cavell Pond below Angel Glacier
Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

This workshop is hosted by the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge and features two full days of instruction and field sessions, as well as three nights at the Lodge. Jasper has long been one of my favourite places to photograph, so I'm honoured to be one of the instructors at this prestigious event.

For more details, or to register, please visit the Focus on the Rockies III website at http://www.fairmont.com/jasper/HotelPackages/Discovery/FocusontheRockiesIII.htm

I look forward to seeing many of you there!

Cheers,

John

One Spot Left in Loon Photography Workshop, June 14-20th

2009-06-09T15:05:00.002-06:00

One of my loon and bird photography workshops in June at Lac Le Jeune near Kamloops, British Columbia has just had a cancellation, so we have one free spot open, first come, first serve. The dates available are June 14-20th, please email me or visit www.naturephototours.com for more information.

Cheers,

John

Loon and Wildlife Photography Workshop - June 2009

2009-04-16T12:35:00.005-06:00

I have all kinds of workshop and seminar information coming down the pipe in the next few weeks, beginning with a series of workshops I have signed on to do with Nature Photo Tours out of New York this spring and summer in British Columbia and Alberta. The first of the photo tours/workshops to be advertised is a loon, bird and wildlife photography workshop at Lac Le Jeune Resort near Kamloops, British Columbia from June 14th - 20th and another one from June 20th - 26th.

Loon Photography Workshop - June 14-20, 20-26, 2009

This is an amazing deal and offers up some fantastic photo opportunities for a variety of species. They've even had a lynx hanging around this year! You can sign up for the workshop and read all about it here.

I'll have more information up about the other workshops and seminars in the next month.

Cheers,

John

Getting Your Images Out There

2009-04-15T21:01:00.003-06:00

If you've ever had an interest in learning more about turning your photography into a business and you live in the Calgary, Alberta area, I will be giving a free presentation with two of Canada's premier nature and landscape photographers, Darwin Wiggett and Sam Chrysanthou, on 'Getting Your Images Out There - How to Get Your Photos Seen,' at the Loose Moose Theatre on Tuesday, April 21st at 7:30 pm. Visit the Foothills Camera Club website for more information.

Self-portrait at sunrise, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada

Cheers,

John

Winter Photography Favourites 2007-2008

2009-03-30T22:52:00.010-06:00

As the winter winds down in 2009, I have finally finished up editing my winter images from 2007-08. Yup, you got that math right, I am exactly one year behind in my photo editing. Pathetic? Absolutely! But that's what happens when I'm given the NHL Center Ice Package for my birthday -- I watch way too much hockey and do way too little editing!

Anyways, excuses aside, here are some of my own personal favourites (not necessarily my most saleable or popular shots) from the winter photographing in the Canadian Rockies and beyond in 2007-08.

The Cline River, David Thompson Country, Alberta, Canada

A wild wolf howling along a mountain road on a gloomy winter morning

A snowy owl perched atop the skeleton of a prairie tree

Castle Mountain reflected in the swift-flowing waters of the Bow River at sunset

Bull elk waging a late season battle in a snowstorm

A large bull moose in a fresh snowfall

Mt Rundle and Vermilion Lakes at sunset, Banff National Park

Two cow elk nervously cross the railway in a snowstorm

A herd of bull elk grazes below the towering face of Mt Ishbel

A lone bighorn ram surveys his winter domain in Wilcox Pass

A lonely abandoned farm on the Canadian Prairies

Friends photographing a giant bull moose at close quarters in Kananaskis Country

A wild wolf wandering the treeline on a beautiful sunny winter day

That's it! Hope you enjoyed the images.

John

Banff - Jasper Photography Blog

2009-03-12T09:36:00.005-06:00

At the start of January 2009, I began a Banff - Jasper Photography Blog for CanadianRockies.Net. The Banff - Jasper blog is quite different from this one, as it's geared towards offering tips, locations and other advice for photographing in Banff, Jasper and the Canadian Rockies.

My Banff - Jasper Photography Blog on CanadianRockies.Net

You'll find my recommendations on everything from the best roads to drive for wildlife photography, to the best times of year to visit the parks, to even the best places to stay based on being a wildlife or a landscape photographer. And of course you'll find lots of great tips on actual locations, like photographing Mt Edith Cavell and Cavell Pond in Jasper.

I'm hoping that this new blog will prove to be a great resource for those of you visiting the Rockies intent on pursuing photography here, as well as for those of you that are frequent visitors, but are maybe looking for a new tidbit of advice or for a new location to shoot at.

Cheers,

John

Cougar Conservation in British Columbia and Alberta

2009-02-15T14:46:00.019-07:00

The sounds of baying hounds could clearly be heard over our cross-country ski instructor's voice. I had come to Nipika Lodge, a beautiful eco-lodge tucked into a wild corner of the BC Rockies, to ski, to enjoy a little peace and quiet, and to watch wildlife. I had not come to Nipika to hear the final few hours of a cougar's life unfold.

- February 11th, 2009

'Doug', a male cougar that frequents the Banff area

Cougar conservation in British Columbia and Alberta has been on my mind ever since a horrifying encounter I had on Alberta's Highway 22 near Bragg Creek in November 2008. Driving in heavy traffic in the dark in a snowstorm, I saw two cars in the opposite lane suddenly swerve as if they were trying to avoid something. As I drove by the spot, I glimpsed what appeared to be an animal lying on one side of the road. Fearing the worst, I turned around quickly and was shocked to see a cougar lying on the edge of the highway, laying on all fours with its head up looking around at my headlights. As I got closer, I realized the cougar had been hit by a car and was paralyzed from the neck down.

What followed was one of the saddest chapters in all of my experiences with wild animals. It was the first cougar I have ever watched die; and, hopefully, the last.

Two months later, in January 2009, while driving along the Bow Valley Parkway in Banff National Park early one morning, I came across another dead cougar. It appeared to have been hit by a vehicle during the night and left to die by the side of the road. That same week, newspapers in the Banff and Canmore area reported the death of a large male cougar on the railway tracks near Canmore.

A young cougar I found along the Bow Valley Parkway in January

Within three months, I had read about or witnessed three human-caused cougar deaths, all within an hour of my home in Canmore. These incidents help highlight the problems facing large predators in the Canadian mountain parks and the surrounding lands. When you add this incidental human-caused mortality to natural-caused deaths, then compound it with the archaic hunting and trapping regulations concerning cougars, wolves, lynx, and other predators in British Columbia and Alberta, you begin to see why so many people are concerned with our tenuous large predator populations here in the Canadian Rockies.

When I heard the hounds stirring up a ruckus near Nipika last Monday (February 10th), and learned that hunters were running a cougar with their dogs, my blood began to boil. I stayed in touch with the story and emailed the owner of Nipika, Lyle Wilson, on Tuesday evening after returning home. As much as I didn't want to know, I had to find out if a cougar had been shot and killed like everyone at the lodge had suspected.

Lyle's email back to me that night confirmed the tragedy:

"Sunday afternoon while operating the Nipika Resort day lodge we started getting reports off the [cross-country ski] trails that people were hearing the bailing howls of a pack of hounds within the area of the trails. This noise went on for a number of hours then stopped in the late afternoon. The following day, Monday, the howling started again early in the day, but from the east side of the Nipika woodlot, and the Cross River Canyon Receation Site. This is a recreation area specifically set up for non-motorized activities. Discharging of firearms is prohibited throughout the site! The howling went on, moving in a Southerly direction for most of the day, until about 2 PM when the loud report of two shots from a high powered rifle split the air. We knew right away that a cougar was dead. The way this is done is that the hunters will simply drive the forestry roads until their dogs tell them by barking that a cougar has recently crossed the road. They let the hounds loose, sometimes one will have a GPS collar attached, and the dogs tear after the cougar scent. The cougar is run to exhaustion, when it, in desperation, climbs a tree to what it assumes is safety. The great white "hunters" then leisurely walk to where the dogs are going crazy at the base of the tree the cat is trapped in, line up the best shot, and shoot the cougar right out of the tree. And they call this sport. I followed the tracks of the hunters 4 wheel drive vehicle right through our non-motorized rec site, and along a narrow road until they were just a few hundred meters from the treed cat. They then walked up the hill to their dogs and shot this magnificent cat dead with 2 shots. It was easy to locate the scene as there was a pronounced blood trail all the way from the tree back to the truck ... the route was littered with empty pop cans, chocolate wrappers, etc, etc that were discarded as they passed by, pretty easy to follow."

Lyle summed up his feelings by writing:

"It is simply insulting for people to call this type of murder a sport or to consider these individuals as 'outdoorsmen'. They have about as much connection to the natural environment as I have a connection to the planet Mars. When will we learn tolerance?"

And Lyle is right. While it's legal, and while these hunters were well within their rights, it still does not mean that hunting cougars (or bears or other predators) with dogs is a god-given right. If everything our forefathers did was still legal, then we'd all be out shooting buffalo off of train decks, leaving the carcasses to rot in the summer sun.

Perhaps more importantly, maybe it's time we re-examined the morality of this type of hunting. What sport is there in driving up and down a logging road til your hounds sniff a cougar out and then run it down, all the while you tail the proceedings in your truck, until it's time to go in and take your trophy.

And that's exactly what predator hunting is: trophy hunting. There is no meat taken or eaten, in fact, the carcass is always left behind. It's just the head/skull and hide that the hunters are after, and to me, this is inherently wrong.

The British Columbia Fish & Wildlife Branch trumpets the cougar on their website "as an integral part of the wildlife of British Columbia" for which "careful management must be maintained." Yet the website goes on to say that one of the reasons cougars are important is "as a legitimate form of outdoor recreation for the hunter and non-hunter alike." A legitimate form of outdoor recreation for the hunter? Driving around in a vehicle while their dogs terrify and chase down a cougar to the point of exhaustion? If this is hunting and outdoor recreation, then we truly do need to re-examine our wilderness morals and ethics as a society.

Check out these staggering facts: in British Columbia, a hunter with a regular hunting license ($32) can spend an additional $110 (!!) each year in order to go out and kill 2 cougars, 1 grizzly and 3 wolves each year. How much would those animals be worth alive to an ecotourism operation like Lyle's at Nipika, where a single night of full cabins brings in more than $4000 in direct tourism revenues.

Worse yet, not only can cougars be hunted legally from September to February each year, but in the 'off-season', anyone with cougar hounds can go out and chase cougars 'for sport' and 'for fun' in a year-round 'Pursuit Only' season.

So how do we go about changing this archaic way of thinking? You can start by firing a quick email to the following contacts in the BC government to express your opinions on the fact BC still allows cougar hunting with dogs and express your support for ecotourism operations like Nipika Lodge which promote wildlife viewing in place of trophy hunting. Even one email helps!! Maybe just simply ask them why BC and Alberta still allow cougar hunting with dogs, to bring it to their attention.

Honourable Bill Bennett, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, BC
E-mail: TCA.Minister@gov.bc.ca

Norm Macdonald, MLA (BC Gov't elected representative), Radium-Invermere, BC
E-mail: norm.macdonald.mla@leg.bc.ca

Fish and Wildlife Branch, BC Ministry of the Environment
E-mail: www.envmail@gov.bc.ca

Travel Alberta (Tourism Association)
E-mail: info@travelalberta.com

Honourable Ted Morton, Minister of Sustainable Resource Development, AB
E-mail: foothills.rockyview@assembly.ab.ca

Thank you. For more conservation news and other issues that concern me, please visit my Canadian Rockies Conservation Issues page.

John

Canadian Geographic Wildlife Photography of the Year Winner

2008-12-18T10:58:00.008-07:00

This shot of mine of a red fox pup leaping through the air recently won the grand prize in the Mammals category of the 2008 Canadian Geographic Wildlife Photography of the Year competition.

'Superman' of the fox community!

The image along with the story are in this month's (December 2008) issue of Canadian Geographic magazine.

I got the shot on a deserted country road in southern Saskatchewan this past June. I'd been driving around the area for a few days looking for badger and red fox dens and had been having quite a bit of success. On that particular morning I'd been skunked at the den I'd sat by at dawn, so I was whizzing around checking a few of the other den sites I'd found. As I was driving past a hillside I'd driven by several times already, I suddenly noticed two fox pups playing in the tall grass beside what looked like another den, a new one that I hadn't noticed before!

I took a few shots of the pups out of my car window, then got out to try to sneak in a little closer. As soon as the pups saw me, WHOOSH!, they were gone down the hole. So I quickly raced forward and set myself up behind a bale of hay at the bottom of the hill, about fifty metres away from the den.

After a few minutes, the pups came back out. Not feeling any danger and not seeing me behind the hay, they started playing again, running all over the hillside chasing each other. As they were racing about, I spotted a pair of rust-coloured ears poking up over the top of the hill.

"No way! There's another pup!"

It looked poised to pounce down on the pups below, so I quickly focused on the spot that I thought it might jump over, then fired off a series of shots as the pup launched itself through the air like Superman, intent on ambushing its siblings.

"Please, please, please," I muttered to myself, hoping that at least one of the shots was sharp. A quick check on the back of my digital camera, and I knew instantly that I had a 'stunner'!

The amazing part was, the pup went back up and did it again...and again...and again! Four times in total, but my first series of shots still produced the best overall photo.

After chatting to Canadian Geographic about the photo, they ended up interviewing me twice more this fall for their Photo Club articles about the ethics of wildlife photography.

The ethics of wildlife photography are very near and dear to me. I do not photograph animals that are raised in captivity or that live in zoos. To me, that's not 'wild'life photography, rather, it's simply model photography. It's definitely a lot more challenging to get out in the wild to try to photograph elusive animals, but that's a very large part of what draws me and many of the colleagues I admire to wildlife photography.

I have always tried to be as ethical as possible in my wildlife photography. I only photograph wild animals, I don't bait animals, I don't sell my photographs to hunting magazines, and most importantly, I try to avoid disrupting an animal's behaviour while I'm photographing it. In a perfect encounter for me, an animal is still doing what it was doing when I arrived when I leave. Of course, that's not always possible, and sometimes I have to make choices in the field.

This red fox pup and its siblings are a great example of that. The pups themselves didn't give two hoots if I was there photographing them, provided I stayed hidden behind the bale. They knew I was there, but they didn't pay me any attention as long as I wasn't visible. However, I limited my time each day at that den because I could tell that it was bugging the adults, one of whom would not come anywhere near the den when I was around. I tried to only visit the den when the adults were off hunting, and if I saw them coming back, I would immediately go back to my car and leave the area.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments about the ethics of wildlife photography!

Happy shooting and wildlife viewing!

John

Banff Bus Photography - ROAM!

2008-12-17T18:19:00.014-07:00

In June of this year, the Town of Banff launched their new and highly publicized hybrid bus system, ROAM, which features larger-than-life images of my wildlife photography all over the buses.

The launch got all kinds of press coverage, like this news release from CBC. I was lucky enough to be contracted to provide images for all four buses in their entirety, each featuring a different animal in one of the four seasons:

The grizzly bear bus featuring a spring theme.

The mountain goat bus featuring a summer theme.

The elk bus featuring a fall theme.

The wolf bus featuring a winter theme.

The Town of Banff has an excellent section on their website with pictures and information on each bus and the project, as well as a profile page on my photography. They've also put together a great video which details just how unique this hybrid bus program is.

On a personal note, it's been exciting for me to be associated with such a high profile green project and to see my photography featured so prominently on the streets of Banff. I am proud of the Town of Banff for taking a leap forward in going green and I hope that Canmore and Jasper won't be far behind!

Cheers, John