ku # 551 ~ shoot 'em all
Monday, January 19, 2009 at 01:13PM 
Looking into the sun through an icy tree and a -23˚F mist • click to embiggenCAVEAT: It is rarely my intention to speak ill of the dead. In this entry I will speak of the dead but I will try my best to speak ill only of the living.
Just a few days ago Jean Keene, the much heralded (in most quarters) "Eagle Lady" of Homer, Alaska passed away. I am familiar with her works through a couple of online nature photo forum that feature Avian Photography. Her work has been a topic of controversy on these (and other) forums - is she doing a good thing or a a bad thing?
For those of you not familiar with her and her work, her "work" for a couple of decades has been the winter feeding of the eagles of Homer - 500 lbs of fish a day. Over the course of that time, the number of eagles that show up for feeding time has grown to over 200 - 300 or more each and every day. Over that same period of time the number of so-called avian photographers who show up for feeding time has grown into the thousands. So many, in fact, that they drive the winter economy of Homer.
The controversy surrounding her "work" (which, in fact, is really a "hobby", not a job) is the age old one of feeding wild creatures in the wild. For quite a while, this activity has been strenuously frowned upon by wildlife conservationists - it most often has the effect of tending to "domestic" wild creatures which causes them to lose many of their natural instincts for foraging for food. Not to mention that they then also tend to associate food with a human presence. That kind of habituation can lead to nasty encounters between humans and wildlife.
And, in the case of the Eagle Lady, irrespective of her intentions regarding the eagles, the effect of such a large concentration of eagles in one place was to wipe out / drive away the native populations of cranes, loons, and other avian species in that region.
Way to go, Eagle Lady.
And, as an added icing on the cake, now that she's gone the eagle feeding will come to an end - the Town Council of Homer banned feeding the eagles (with the single exception of the Eagle Lady) in Homer - and no one knows how many of the handout-dependent eagles will perish in the absence of a "free" meal.
Way to go, Eagle Lady.
Now, you can judge for yourself whether or not the aforementioned speaks ill of the dead but let there be no doubt about the following.
It is beyond my imagining why avian photographers would take any satisfaction from picturing what amounts to picturing birds feeding in a dump. But apparently quite a number of them do. So many, in fact, that there is a rising chorus of voices in Homer decrying the end of the eagle feeding because of its negative impact upon the local economy. So many, in fact, that it is estimated that over 80% of all of the published pictures of eagles were made in Homer at the Eagle Lady's fish dump.
With the exception of commercial photographers on assignment who need to get in and out quickly with the goods, I am at a complete loss to understand why someone would pay, on average $3,200, to book a "tour" to Homer, Alaska to visit a dump.
Now, I am not unaware of the fact that birders of both the observer and the picturing variety usually have a life-list of birds that they have actually seen and hope to see. They check them off like items on an automat food menu.
But, just like the nearly endless stream of pictures made at iconic locations - Half Dome, Horse Shoe Bend, Old Faithful, Rainbow Arch, et al - I don't understand the weird idea, to my way of thinking, of wanting to picture what has been pictured a zillions times before. I want to avoid like the plague putting my feet and my tripod feet in the same places that have seen a zillion feet and tripod feet before me.
To be completely frank, I am so sick and tired of images of all the iconic places that I don't even want to visit any of these places for any reason whatsoever.
An aside Here in our area, a just recently spotted owl of some kind or another (rarely seen south of the Canadian border) drew hundreds of birders hoping for a sighting and a picture or two. OK, that's fine - everybody needs to have a hobby. Hell, for number of years I collected autographs of famous blues musicians on my Gibson Les Paul guitar although, for what it's worth, I was really "collecting" the music-listening experience.
That said, I also find it totally incomprehensible why someone who claims to appreciate birds so much would partake in an activity that obviously does the species harm - and, as in the case of our Eagle Lady friend, other species as well. Are they so self-absorbed with their own picture making obsession that it's just a matter of damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead? Are they just take-the-easy-way-out assholes who are too f**king lazy to take the time and make the effort to actually picture an eagle in the wild? Something that I assume is a not an especially easy task.
IMO, all of these so-called wildlife/avian photographers are accomplishing little more than those so-called hunters who kill "trophy" game on a game farm - it's nothing more than shooting ducks in a barrel.
Wow. Big deal.
If that's all there were to it, I'd say let them have their "fun". But, unfortunately, in this case, shooting ducks in a barrel does real harm, not only to the "ducks", but also to other species as well. But, then again, maybe I am speaking ill of the dead, because, after all, it wasn't the photographers who were feeding the eagles .... they were just flocking like vultures around the stench of a rotting carcass - 50,000 lbs (a year) of rotting fish carcass to be exact.
Reader Comments (3)
Weeeelll - that bitch doesn't become you. As long as we've got such a surfeit of humans on this rock we're going to have suffering wildlife. Whether by our inherent nastiness, our over breeding, or our mistaken (as you see it) well meaningfulness. Can't be helped. I'd say let her and her ilk continue their feeding of a few lucky and lazy beasts. (There are bears, I understand, who'd rather forage in garbage than go hunting and raccoons who'd also rather eat our trash than get their own fresh produce - we've many scavengers hanging on at the limits of our habitat.) She's made pets of this batch of eagles just like many folk make pets of cats and dogs. Sooner or later when our whole jerry-rigged civilization collapses it'll be each species for itself and the devil take the hindmost. Then Nature will become balanced once again.
It occurs to me this is played out on a much larger scale worldwide every day with aide to fellow humans. Life is uncertain, eat dessert first.
I simply, in my wildest imagination, cannot imagine going to this place--specifically to photograph one of the most beautiful wild birds--and feeling nothing but utter despair and revulsion. As the solitary photographer that I am, just the very idea of sharing a staged experience in fishy smelling dump gives me the willies. I can't even bring myself to head up to Alton or Grafton, Illinois (10 and 20 miles up the road) to queue up along the highway to watch the eagles as they are now roosting in fair numbers. I tried it a few years ago and nearly got run over by a truck. (Or was it a photographer with a monster lens on a monster tripod?) Fortunately we don't have the habituation problem that they have in Homer, Alaska. Yet. Or at least not that I know of.