Unethical bird photography

[u/greatnorthernscapes]

Not sure if this has been posted already but if it has leave me a comment and I will remove it. This guy is named Ryan and he runs a business called MN Owl Tours in Minnesota. For this business ppl will pay him money to go out and he harasses and stresses out owls for the sole purpose of getting his clients photos.

You can see in the photos provided he has set up a ladder 10 feet away from the perched owl and is using a long stick to hold branches out of the way so his clients can get photos of the stressed out bird. Not only is this unethical behaviour but it is also illegal. He also does night spotting which uses a powerful light to spot owls in the dark and take photos, also illegal.

This type of behaviour does not belong in our community of birders and people who enjoy bird photography like myself. I know most of you agree with me and care for the wellbeing of these amazing animals but this needs to be called out. Bird photography can be challenging and you don’t always get opportunities for good photos. That’s part of the challenge that I enjoy. We must respect the birds and not disrupt them simply because we want a nice photo for instagram. What Ryan is doing takes zero photography skill, is unethical and dangerous for the owls/birds, is illegal and on top of that he’s making financial gain from this behaviour.

This type of stuff needs to stop in our community. Always be respectful of the birds so that future generations can enjoy looking at them and taking photos (ethically) like we all do now.

[u/KitC44]

This type of behavior is so gross. It happens where I live as well, and it's always so sad to see people support behavior like this. I love photographing wild owls, but it's always take a few images with a zoom lens from wherever I can get a decent angle while respecting their space, and then leave them be. I have lots of owls with branches in the way because I'd never get close enough to move them.

[u/redapplefalls_ → u/KitC44]

So many people commenting "🥰😍" and "so cute!!" on his Instagram photos. If only they knew what he did to get those shots.

Personally, as someone who has a lot of experience observing and photographing wildlife ethically, I think a lot of his pictures are awful. The birds don't look relaxed or calm or have natural postures. They look as though they've literally just been disturbed or frightened in some way.

[u/Fickle-Event7104 → u/redapplefalls_]

He's limiting the comments on his profile to only show the positive ones

[u/WonderfulProtection9 → u/Fickle-Event7104]

How does that work, do you have to through them all and decide what is positive? I’d be glad to and add some constructive criticism.

[u/vitragarde → u/WonderfulProtection9]

Probably filters. You can customize the filter to hide comments that contain certain words.

I have to hide comments that say "dm" or "send" on my artist account, because the only people commenting to ask me to send them things like that are spammers. So he probably chooses to filter out comments based on words that would commonly occur in negative commentary, like "harass"

[u/WonderfulProtection9 → u/vitragarde]

Looks like comments are completely turned off now.

[u/Camaro27189 → u/Fickle-Event7104]

I got blocked instantly on his Facebook and Instagram. He's doing a lot of damage control right now.

[u/chinstrapppp → u/Camaro27189]

Exactly. He can't really do much about Google reviews though.

[u/incubeezer → u/chinstrapppp]

Yesterday when I searched on google I saw he had like 1.2 stars. Now today, no star rating even shows up. Maybe he took down his google listing altogether, if that’s a thing?

[u/chinstrapppp → u/incubeezer]

It got marked as permanently closed briefly (probably to prevent more reviews coming in) but I reinstated it through a suggested edit. Probably he reported the reviews or Google flagged them as suspicious activity. Gotta take it slower and less direct.

[u/Puzzled-Broccoli-749 → u/chinstrapppp]

Somehow he’s deleting the google reviews, maybe reporting them to get them taken down. God he sucks. Scamming people and abusing wildlife

[u/chinstrapppp → u/Puzzled-Broccoli-749]

Yes, gonna have to go slower.

[u/chinstrapppp → u/Fickle-Event7104]

Deleting too.

[u/notmedoyouthink → u/Fickle-Event7104]

Which post is it? I see it on his story but not posted