Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 237, September 2019, Pages 327-337
Biological Conservation

Policy analysis
Camera shy? Motivations, attitudes and beliefs of bird photographers and species-specific avian responses to their activities

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.07.016Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We describe photographer motivations, attitudes and behaviours.

  • Photographers took and shared images partly to inspire others.

  • Bird photography may disturb birds.

  • Photographers felt disturbance they caused was trivial.

  • We quantify avian escape responses evoked by photographers.

  • For most species, photographers evoked escape at longer distances than walkers.

Abstract

Bird photography is a popular and growing pursuit which may disturb birds. This study: 1) characterises photographer motivations, attitudes and behaviours; and, 2) examines avian escape responses evoked by photographers. Bird photographers (n = 188) answered scaled questions with responses characterised using Principle Components Analysis. Photographers had high commitment and specificity to bird photography, often documenting species rarity or novelty, but rarely videoed birds. Respondents generally thought that photography instilled an appreciation of birds in others. They were concerned with especially sensitive contexts for photography (breeding, migrating and some habitats) yet believed disturbance caused is ephemeral and trivial. Flight-Initiation Distance (FID) evoked by experimental approaches to four treatments, three of which mimicked photographer behaviour (taking an image every five steps while 1. walking, 2. walking and using a flash, 3. crouching) and 4. walkers (control) (n = 1093; 128 species) revealed a significant interaction between species and treatment. Single species models (n = 11, where n ≥ 4 for all treatments) revealed differences between treatments for eight species. In all but one of these species, photographer behaviour was associated with longer FIDs, suggesting birds judged such behaviour as especially threatening, perhaps because aspects were similar to the behaviour of a predator. The FIDs reported here could usefully underpin enhanced guidelines for ethical bird photography, but prescriptions need to be species-specific, and tailored to the behaviours used by photographers.

Introduction

Many interactions between wildlife and people are inadvertent, but some people seek close proximity encounters with wildlife, for example to hunt, observe and photograph the wildlife; these interactions are common and becoming more widespread and frequent (Russell and Ankenman, 1996; Goodfellow, 2017). Birds have captured the imagination of many people, be it for hunting, ecotourism, birdwatching or bird photography (Mohan and Athreya, 2011). Some birdwatchers and photographers will travel substantially to seek encounters with birds, a phenomenon which is expected to grow further (Higginbottom, 2004; Moss, 2013). Cameras have improved markedly; digital cameras are cheap, portable and deliver high quality images (Mancuso and Battiato, 2001; Wee and Tsang, 2008). These factors have underpinned a boom in bird photography (Laurent, 2013).

Wildlife respond to stimuli in their environment including people and their activities. The disruption of normal behaviour or physiology caused by humans (“disturbance”) is considered a biodiversity conservation issue (Weston et al., 2012). Animals generally respond to people as if they were predators, and most commonly exhibit escape responses (Frid and Dill, 2002). Animal escape behaviour is complex (Cooper and Blumstein, 2015). It is widely accepted that animals assess risk associated with an encounter (an event entailing a close proximity with a stimulus) and trade-off the costs versus the benefits of fleeing, assessing this risk in a dynamic fashion (Pérez-Tris et al., 2004; Cooper, 2008). The trade-off for an animal involves deciding whether it is more advantageous to stay within a resource patch or to leave (Frid and Dill, 2002). The costs and benefits of escape change as a potential predator (a “stimulus”) approaches. Therefore, the decision to flee is influenced by many factors, including: the species assessing the risk (Blumstein et al., 2005; Bernard et al., 2018), and aspects of the stimulus such as starting distance (Blumstein, 2003), speed (Lethlean et al., 2017), predictability (MacArthur et al., 1982; Cole and Knight, 1991) and associated noise (Meillère et al., 2015).

Wildlife can also discriminate between different behaviours exhibited by stimuli and assess which behaviours are more threatening (Cooper, 1997; Weston et al., 2012; Guay et al., 2016). Thus, different human activities engender different responses by wildlife (Åhlund and Götmark, 1989; Cole and Knight, 1991; Glover et al., 2015). For example, for some species, bicycles and joggers evoked responses from birds at greater distances than walkers (Lethlean et al., 2017; Bernard et al., 2018).

Bird photographers (i.e., those who actively seek the acquisition of images of birds) represent a substantial and growing recreational group yet are chronically understudied. Distinction between bird photographers, birdwatchers and bird-focussed ecotourists (collectively, ‘birders’) is complex and lacks clarity (defined here in Fig. 1). Birders are a heterogeneous group (Scott and Lee, 2003) and therefore have a variety of motivations, attitudes and behaviours (Bryan, 2000; Hvenegaard, 2002; Scott and Thigpen, 2003). However, little is known of their motivations, attitudes and behaviours.

Birdwatching, bird photography and ecotourism involve a close encounter between the human and the subject of their attention – the bird (Sekercioglu, 2002; Goodfellow, 2017). While birders therefore approach birds, and may be perceived by birds as predators, photographers must approach particularly closely. The magnification used by high quality camera lenses is less than those provided by binoculars or spotting scopes, necessitating especially close approaches (longer focal length lenses are associated with less wildlife disturbance; Lott, 1992). Additionally, birdwatchers generally wish to observe undisturbed birds, and aim to maintain separation distances from birds which generally do not evoke escape responses (authors, pers. obs.). In general, photographers require close approaches for a short time interval to capture the desired images; there is a thus distinct difference in the behaviour between photographers and birdwatchers (Knight and Temple, 1995; Larson, 1995). Photographers undertake a series of measures to minimise their distance from birds and simultaneously minimising the probability of evoking an escape response before images are captured. These include hunter-like behaviours such as getting low, stalking, camouflage and moving slowly (Brower, 2011; Farnsworth, 2011). Given that birds judge risk associated with approaching humans, and that avian responses are antipredator in nature, photographers may effectively be sub lethal predators. The camera may be considered analogous to the rifle (the tools required for the activity) and the image to the kill (the sought outcomes).

Birding is beneficial for both the economy and conservation efforts (US$13 billion of bird related tourism revenue worldwide is channelled into conservation efforts per year). While birding is ‘non-consumptive’, it is not universally benign (Sekercioglu, 2002; Laurent, 2013; Weston et al., 2015). Indeed, birdwatching may have an underappreciated impact on birds; some bird species display longer escape distances to a birdwatcher than to a walker (Radkovic et al., 2017). This may be because birdwatchers exhibit behaviour which may be perceived as predator-like (Radkovic et al., 2017). Photographers are likely to exhibit these predator-like behaviours to an even greater extent.

Bird photography could therefore conceivably be among the most disturbing type of birding activity. Photographers sometimes leave designated tracks and paths, stopping frequently whilst approaching birds (Klein, 1993; Orams, 2002). The peak season for bird photographers is often at sensitive times of the avian life cycle (e.g., breeding, migrating), when close encounters can be detrimental to reproductive success or survival (Knight and Cole, 1995). Moreover, bird photographers intentionally seek out rare and spectacular species, leading to more focussed and potentially damaging disturbance (Knight and Cole, 1995; Møller et al., 2014).

Impacts on wildlife by photography have been recently reported, especially from China (Huang et al., 2011; Giglio et al., 2018). Blue-crowned Laughingthrush (Garrulax courtoisi) were more disturbed, abandoned nests, nested higher in trees, and realised poorer reproductive success when visited by photographers rather than villagers (Zhang et al., 2017). At Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor) nesting sites, photographers were the most common cause of disturbance (39% of all causal agents), causing birds to leave their perching sites (Wei et al., 2005). For Yellow-eyed Penguins Megadyptes antipodes in New Zealand, a simulated wildlife photographer, crawling slowly, elicited a significantly higher heart rate responses than an entirely motionless human spending the same time at the same distance (Ellenberg et al., 2013). Beyond these studies, no published study has hitherto examined the effect of photographers on the behavioural responses of birds. The available studies have not investigated the specific aspects of photography which are causing the disturbance, nor the relative degree of disturbance. These information gaps persist in the face of likely detrimental effects and the likely rapid and ongoing growth in photographer/bird interactions (Cordell et al., 2009).

Attitudes influence behaviours, and there is a positive correlation between attitudes, pro-conservation and environmentally sensitive behaviour (McKnight and Sutton, 1994). No study known to us has researched how photographers value birds, their motivations for photography or how they behave when taking images. If the behaviour of bird photographers differs from other recreationists, then specific management strategies may be required. If strategies to manage impacts are cognisant of bird photographer motivations, attitudes and behaviours then there is a greater chance of success in implementation, and greater opportunity for photographers to contribute to conservation (Bryan, 2000; Teel et al., 2003; Woodroffe et al., 2005; Ballantyne et al., 2009; Connell, 2009). Photography offers benefits to birds as well as conservation and welfare risks. It provides social and economic benefits and contributes to conservation, by incentivising protection for natural areas and species, it imparts an economic value to biodiversity and helps educate and inspire (Cordell and Herbert, 2002; Sekercioglu, 2002). Photography also adds scientific knowledge through visual evidence and which may form the basis for further study (Gaglio et al., 2017; Allport et al., 2018).

Coexistence is the mitigation and balance of human impacts with the needs of wildlife; the result is sustainable human activities (“sustainable photography”) and conserved wildlife (Manfredo et al., 1995; Sekercioglu, 2002). Photographers are likely to be highly dispersed in natural areas with particular concentrations in a few locations (Sekercioglu, 2002), thus management strategies which apply broadly are attractive. Most efforts to manage photographers centre around Codes of Conduct (CoC) which aim to reduce the human impact associated with human-wildlife interactions (Bauer and Dowling, 2003; Birtles et al., 2004). For photography, these include minimum approach distances (Guay et al., 2016) and a few instances of strict site-based CoCs (e.g. the banning of flash photography; Phillip Island Nature Parks, 2018). However, currently all CoCs for photography lack underpinning science i.e., there is a lack of species-specific knowledge regarding avian response to human activity (Moore and Rodger, 2010). An acknowledged problem with CoCs is low compliance (Waayers et al., 2006; Quiros, 2007), suggesting that an understanding of photographer's motivations, attitudes, and behaviours are a critical consideration when developing and implementing CoCs.

Key information gaps inhibit management of interactions between photographers and wildlife. Many CoCs are general rules, not specifying approach distances for species or stimuli, and are therefore difficult to implement and impossible to enforce. A better understanding of individual species responses would permit more specific and effective management. The same is true for better understanding people's attitudes towards photography, their motivations and their behaviours regarding photography and their awareness of the conservation issues involved (Ballantyne et al., 2009). Such understanding is an essential component of successful, long-term management strategies which require behaviour maintenance or change in humans (Bright et al., 2000; Teel et al., 2003). No existing study of bird photographer motivations, attitudes or behaviours is known to the authors.

Most studies of bird response behaviour to humans have involved single walkers (Glover et al., 2011; McLeod et al., 2013; Bernard et al., 2018); one study is available on responses to birdwatchers (Radkovic et al., 2017). There appears to be no experimental study, which quantifies avian responses evoked by bird photographers for the development of recommendations for ethical bird photography.

The first aim of this study is to characterise photographer motivations, attitudes and behaviours. This also helped inform the choice of experimental treatments to assess avian responses to bird photographers. The second aim was to determine if there is a difference in avian escape response (Flight Initiation Distance; FID) to photographer-related stimuli compared to that for a walker (a ‘control’).

Interpretations of patterns in FIDs are made in relation to two alternative hypotheses. The ‘photographer wisdom’ hypothesis posits that photographers display certain behaviours and strategies that effectively minimise the distance between them and the bird without disturbing the bird. In other words, photographers have learned, to some extent, to reduce avian escape responses. Under this hypothesis, greater tolerances of birds (i.e., shorter FIDs) will be associated with photographer approaches compared with walker approaches. The ‘photographer hunter’ hypothesis posits that the same photographer strategies and behaviours are perceived by the bird as being predator-like. In this case, FIDs will be longer to photographer approaches than to those of a walker.

Section snippets

Survey of photographers

A five-page, 31 question survey was delivered using the online survey platform Qualtrics. It was sent via email, to 639 participants from the BirdLife Photography Special Interest Group of BirdLife Australia. There were three main sections measuring different aspects of respondents:

  • 1.

    Motivations; this section had 14 scaled items (questions) asking participants to rate their answers to motivational statements from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree.

  • 2.

    Attitudes; participants rated their agreement to

Photographer motivations, attitudes and behaviours

Of 639 surveys emailed, 31.1% (199) were returned; not all respondents answered all questions meaning sample sizes vary. Respondents lived throughout Australia and the sample was male-biased (127 [63.8%] male; χ12 = 194.00, p < 0.001, n = 192). Almost 93% of respondents were over 48 years of age: 7.9% were aged 18–47 years; 13.1%, 48–57 years; 43.5%, 58–67 years; 31.9%, 68–77 years; and 3.7% were ≥ 78 years (cf. 40.9% over 48 years for Australia as a whole; Australian Bureau of Statistics

Discussion

We describe a sample of photographers that were more often male, older, retired and more educated than the general Australian population; these presumably reflect attributes of bird photographers more generally.

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