Showing 56 to 60 of 106 blog articles.
The hurdles of working in conservation films

As a wildlife filmmaker based in a country like India that is high on blue chip and large scale productions and popular voices doing voice overs, specializing in conservation filmmaking is harder than one can imagine.

India is home to Bollywood, an industry that producers over 300-350 Hindi language films each year, my conservation film on roadkills stands almost no chance of getting noticed.

This makes it a challenge to hit that mark with your target audience and get the publicity ball rolling.

How do I address this gap? Well, we make them feel emotionally attached to the animal. 

You make it relatable.

You could look at the Big 5 or similar megafauna or make the story feel relatable and humanized. Personified.

Add the drama. Add conflict. 

Add the sense of adventure and the idea of pursuing something.

Make them feel like their involvement in this story is worth their time :) 




  4 years ago
The Shooting Trap Part 3. Words Can Hurt


Words can hurt - in this case kill, by definition…
Supposed to be the last argument, but maybe not
Words have meaning, lead to shared understanding 
Trophy on its own a clear word, same for Hunting 
Compounded they go oxymoronic, nonsensical 
Marketing for deliberately misleading
Trophy Hunting, no sporting prowess killing
Feel good appellation - maybe only feel better
Body parts are not trophies in 2022, neither manhood rituals
Like they were in early human wars and hunting gathering 
Held some mystical power over a dead enemy
Since when an enemy - a lion, elephant, giraffe, a rhino
And all of the others savagely pictured and posted
When it’s minding its own business
Just trying to stay alive in its own habitat
When was Trophy appropriated to blood-sport
For that matter, when did sport turn to killing
Its just a transaction, akin to an execution
A Trophy Hunter Hit Man fulfilling his own Contract
Purchases a licence to kill
Still misnomenclatured, still oxymoronic
Ethics left to humans playing god
When nature is ruled by the gods of chance
No guarantee for prey to make it through the day
Even if they could pray
Let the Dictionaries take note, erroneous definition
Trophy Hunting is neither sport not hunting
The search is on for its definitive replacement 
Body Part Killing, no direct transliteration 
Killing Animals for Body Parts - sounds like the descriptor
There’s a challenge for you 
Come up with an accurate name
Animal Killing (for no good reason (understood)
Is as close as a poet can get
Until creative licence is enacted
Thrill Killing grinning, compulsive killing chilling
Any deprecating descriptor
Still more accurate than Trophy Hunting
Put it in a can, as they do with lions
Let them shoot it down, a guaranteed kill
Let them pose, maniacally grinning
Next to the lifeless, grotesque corpse
Trophy Hunting, rest in pieces
Valued parts cut off, carted away
To stare out in death another day
From a former killer’s wall

‘It’s easier from an armchair’
I agree with Roger, in ‘Drowse’
Making these ‘expert’ comments
In ignorance from far away

No one wins this debate
While the animals lose their lives
To ‘conserve’ more of their kind 
Into it they fell so easily
The Shooting Trap

  3 years ago
BIWFC

The Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control's (BIWFC) 2022 Summer Newsletter is now available. In this edition you will learn about the recent 9th International Conference on Wildlife Fertility Control hosted by BIWFC in Colorado Springs, as well as other wildlife fertility control projects and issues.

The Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control is a non-profit organization that aims to advance the use of effective, sustainable fertility control methods to mitigate human - wildlife conflicts and promote coexistence worldwide. BIWFC, established in 2016 as a partnership between the Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation and The Humane Society of the United States, is headquartered in Media, PA with an additional office at the University of York in the United Kingdom. To learn more visit wildlifefertilitycontrol.org


  3 years ago
The Shooting Trap Part 1.


A Shoot!
Grab your guns! Time for fun!
Don’t get over excited
Only a debate, like a Trap Shoot
Nothing live to shoot
Although that is the subject
Have gun, must shoot
Something
Clay pigeon arguments! Disappointed!

Pull!
A great debate
Hunting for conservation, not verses
Let your arguments fly
We’ll need to follow closely
Get it in our sights, as it speeds by
Fast response, must recognise the target
Well it may fly but gravity will bring it down
Those that are missed, still damaging
If not shot down - in flames is better

Two teams
Affirmative
Hunting is needed for conservation
Negative
How can it be?
Affirmation of killing goes first

Pull!
Their argument flies
Conservation is expensive
How shall we be funded, well may we ask
Agreeing, the Negative lets it by

Pull!
Less dangerous animals, less retaliation
Those that live with risk know
We’re not stalked on the ground
Too, let this argument go
No discharge

Pull!
Not mostly endangered animals, little impact
Plenty of ungulates, need regulating
Less pressure on habitats
A half-hearted shot is taken
Still not the right target

Pull!
Incentives for the local populations
Supposedly benefit as the money filters down
Works out at some cents, makes no sense
Incentivises to open up country for hunting
Protects more land than in Parks, apparently
Figures are dodgy, the clay pigeon goes wobbly
This one is hit, shatters in a puff of powdered clay
Blown out of the sky, dust trailing
Already 1.3 million square kms
Are open to Trophy Hunting
This would add more!
Adds up to more killing
Can’t equal more conservation 

Still, not a good score for the negative
But are they in the right debate?
Both sides seeking alternatives kinder
(The hunters are not in this particular debate)
Conservation needs resourcing, not debatable
It’s the arguments that were not stated
That’s where the real problem is slated
‘Show me the money’ science doesn’t sit well 
The refutation shots are loaded
For a game-changer
And for the recriminations?

Part 2. That’s Debatable (coming soon)

A.E. Lovell
TheOneMillionPoetry.com (launching in April)

  3 years ago
Kobus kob thomasi

The Ugandan kob (Kobus kob thomasi), male,Queen Elizabeth NP, Uganda, 2016.

The Ugandan kob is a subspecies of the kob, a type of antelope. Only the males have horns, which are lyre-shaped, strongly ridged and divergent.

Males are slightly larger than females, being 90 to 100 cm (3.0 to 3.3 ft) at the shoulder, with an average weight of 94 kg (207 lb), while females are 82 to 92 cm (2.7 to 3.0 ft) at the shoulder and on average weigh about 63 kg (139 lb). Apart from the throat patch, muzzle, eye-ring and inner ear, which are white, the coat is golden to reddish-brown, the color differentiating it from other kob subspecies. The belly and inside of the legs are white, and the front of the forelegs are black.

It is typically found in open or wooded savanna, within a reasonable distance of water, and it also occurs in grasslands near rivers and lakes.

Ugandan kobs are herbivores and feed largely on grasses and reeds.

The females and young males form loose groups of varying size which range according to food availability, often moving along watercourses and grazing in valley bottoms. Sometimes non-breeding males form their own groups. Ugandan kobs usually have a lek mating system, in which males defend small territories clustered on traditional mating grounds. Females visit these leks only to breed, and males provide no parental care. Each lek is associated with a female herd of about 100 individuals. Females begin to mate at the age of one, but males must normally wait for several more years. A single calf is born in November or December, after a gestation period of about nine months.

Ugandan kob appears on the coat of arms of Uganda. #Godfreytheguide #Uganda #Animals #Antelope.

www.interiorsafarisea.com

  3 years ago