Photographers Shown Baiting Eagles with Injected Fish

Nature photography is one of the most difficult jobs in our field. It involves standing, sitting, or crawling for hours on end just to take one shot that in the end might get down to luck. As important as it is to recognize and praise the photographers that go through all of this just to bring us joy, it’s also important to point to the ones who aren’t considerate to nature itself. News site mothership.sg shared the shocking video below on their Facebook page:

Nature photographers in Singapore allegedly stuffed fish with …

We have received this video showing a group of nature photographers allegedly using live fish stuffed with Styrofoam bits to bait critically-endangered Grey-headed Fish Eagles.All this, so they can take better photos of the fish eagles.The incident took place on Aug. 16, 2015, at Little Guilin, a park in Bukit Gombak.Story coming up.

Posted by Mothership.sg on Sunday, October 25, 2015

The men in the video are part of a group of nature photographers, and they’re shown tampering with fish in the hopes of getting a great shot of an eagle. The danger to what they are doing is twofold: first, they hurt the fish, and second, they hurt the eagle itself. After eating the fish, the endangered eagle will likely die.

photographers bait eagles nature photography

A man caught on film injecting air into a fish

In the photo above we can see how the man injects air into the fish. This is so that the fish will float on top of the water, drawing the attention of the eagle. If this should fail, they also put styrofoam into the fish’s mouth.

photographers bait eagles nature photography

The bait now set, photographers wait for their moment.

Here we see the photographers waiting for the eagles to swoop in. Their telephoto lenses at ready for that one moment.

It’s a shame that this practice is happening, and hopefully by raising awareness on the issue we can bring it to an end.

Like This Article?

Don't Miss The Next One!

Join over 100,000 photographers of all experience levels who receive our free photography tips and articles to stay current: