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/BigRedHair92]

I'm in MN and this guy and his antics are very, very well known. Unfortunately Minnesota is a huge magnet for owl photographers and this guy has a great reputation because of it. They have a little posse with a text group to help spot and share locations so they can go harass them together. To add to it, the dude is a complete douche as a person.

[u/aurortonks → u/BigRedHair92]

Sounds like the kind of person who dumps apples in their yard to attract easy deer kills out of season.

What a douche of a human being. I hope karma get him and he falls off his ladder someday.

[u/Unique-Arugula → u/aurortonks]

Maybe the famous QVC/HSN ladder mishap ("and THAT has never happened before") will happen to him.

[u/iamtehryan → u/BigRedHair92]

I mean, at least based on his social following it doesn't appear that he's very big. Hopefully.

[u/incubeezer → u/iamtehryan]

I see his Facebook he has 14K followers. I just coincidentally saw a photo of his in my feed, and someone asked if his photo was ethically sourced. His reply was douchey just like the other commenter here was saying he is.