What's the basic ethics of nature photography? The picture of a baby Black-nape Oriole was recently won the Gold Award rated by a photography competition hosted by China's Liaoning Photographers Society on Sept. 21st. Soon, we received complaints from Mr. Yu, a CBCGDF volunteer and a CCAfa director, that this picture was a very immoral photo.

According to his long-time birding experiences, Black-nape Oriole birds never nesting like that - on an unshaded and low twig. Obviously, this picture is a POSED one, which the photographer removed the nest from the densely shadowed tree and put it onto a lower tree branch for the convenience of picture-shooting. Usually, this behavior brings disasters for the bird family. Parents may discard the youngster; the sun may bake the little bird to death. This is very rude and violates China's Wildlife Protection Law.

Another evidence is that the CBCGDF Volunteer found this picture was taken back in June 18th, when he received tipoffs from another local volunteer that some people were settling camouflaged tents and stole a nest for bird photo-taking. Carefully compared the details, the prize-winning picture announced in Sept. was exactly the same one that was reported in June.

CBCGDF wrote an article accusing this photography competition, asking host organizations to change the decision and the photographer to make a public apology. And the CBCGDF will release a new Ethic Code for Nature Photography soon after.

(Photo courtesy: CBCGDF's volunteers)

Original Chinese article:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/2AdgsL9z-dDiBQwRWjB9dA

By / Linda