There are wildlife photographers and then there are National Geographic wildlife photographers. Even in today's real-time, caught-on-tape video-dominated culture the photographers of NG just keep capturing still images and stories with the power to awe. Images and stories like this

Besides highlighting the exceptional clankers one needs to be a NG photographer, it shows - in dramatic fashion - how little we really know about animal behavior: how they process information, what they feel, how they think, what emotions they are or aren't capable of.
Hunters and wildlife photographers both spend large amounts of time hidden or undetected while observing the natural world around them, and I'm sure we've all watched animals do things or act in ways that challenged our fundamental assumptions, what we thought we knew about those animals.

Granted, it might not be as amazing (and amazingly terrifying) as having a monstrous-big leopard seal try to adopt you, but have you ever witnessed something that made you think "What the hell?"

Trail cameras are, for hunters, becoming so ubiquitous that we often don't think about their potential for other uses. I certainly never did until my son said he wanted one for Christmas, not for hunting, but to record all the various wildlife that travels through our rural back yard.
 
I thought it was a great idea, and in the broader context I thought it had real potential to get kids interested in the outdoors. But as I was perusing the excellent Southern Rockies Nature Blog recently I discovered a link to a teacher who had already figured that out.

From the blog:
Question: How do you make it fun for kids to learn about ecology and  modern technology, and develop respect for nature? Answer: Give them lessons in camera trapping. That's what’s happening at Afton-Lakeland Elementary School near Minnesota's twin cities. Dawn Tanner is developing a trail camera curriculum there for school kids. Dawn is a University of Minnesota PhD candidate. Her baptism in wildlife research was in the Galapagos Islands and Malaysian Borneo. She loved fieldwork, but decided that she wanted to get elementary school kids turned on to science, biodiversity, and conservation.

And how did that happen? Well, she got an NSF fellowship that sent graduate students in ecology and conservation biology to Minnesota's metropolitan schools. Their mission there was to work with the teachers to improve science lessons and incorporate science more broadly into the school curriculum.

Many Minnesota kids have formed positive attitudes about the environment by the time they reach the fifth grade.

The word is out and teachers are interested. “Quite a number of teachers have contacted me already because they've heard about the testing we're doing at Afton-Lakeland Elementary. They want to get involved right now. I wish I could have the curriculum ready sooner. There’s a strong desire to teach with remote cameras and get kids out there doing biodiversity science." To date Dawn and the kids have photographed 12 species of mammals and birds.
 
Curmudgeonly hand-wringing about the future of our children is something we all engage in. I'm quite guilty of it myself.
 
But the fact is, our kids are growing up in and are being shaped by a different world, a more connected, wired and technological world than we did, and no amount of teeth-gnashing and nostalgic bemoaning will change that. The trick now is to figure out a way to get kids engaged in the natural world through the mediums they understand. This is an absolutely brilliant way of accomplishing that. I salute Dawn Tanner and I predict similar programs will start popping up in schools all over the nation.

PHOTO BY Willy4003 -- entered into our October Trail Cam Contest

From AOL News:
A 2-year-old girl whose temporary abduction sparked an Amber Alert in Maine on Monday is now safe at home again -- thanks to a passing hunter. . . .

On Tuesday afternoon, said WMUR/News 9, a hunter named Michael Grant was tramping through a wooded area not far from Milton, N.H., when he saw a familiar truck. Grant recognized both the make and license plate from television news reports. . . .

"I walked up to [the truck] and told [the driver] that I knew he was the gentleman [authorities] were looking for," Grant told WMUR. "[I] pretty much told him he had one of two choices. He could turn himself in or I could turn him in."

After a long, emotional conversation, Grant said, he persuaded [the man] to surrender to police.

Here's an interesting story that highlights why I  believe it's possible to be opposed to animal cruelty without  falling into the hypocrisy of "animal rights." Ice-skating Bear Kills Circus Head
From the story:
A circus bear killed one person and injured  another during rehearsals for an ice-skating show. The bear, which was part  of the Russian State Circus, killed Dmitri Potapov, 25, a circus director  who was visiting the show in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. An animal  handler who tried to stop the attack suffered bruising to the brain and  lacerations to his scalp. It is unclear why the bear, which was wearing ice  skates at the time, attacked Mr Potapov. The bear was later shot by police.  Deadly attacks are rare in the country's circuses, which often train bears  to wear skates and play ice hockey.

We read all the time about  animal trainers getting mauled by their students. This generally occurs as the animal trainer is coercing a large and/or dangerous animal into doing something completely alien to its nature for the purpose of entertainment. It's just one more  side-effect of our species' stubborn insistence on inflicting Bambi fantasies on wild animals.
 
Watch this Youtube video of  Russian bears actually playing ice hockey:

I find this sickening. I don't understand why anyone would want to watch these apex predators "performing,"  doing something so alien to what they are and the wildness they symbolize. I don't think it's entertaning, I think it qualifies as cruelty.
 
However, that doesn't make me a supporter of the  concept of animal "rights" and it doesn't make me a  hypocrite for seeing absolutely nothing wrong with things like rodeos, horse races and retriever field trials, either. Why, because those activities  don't try to turn animals ino something they're not. Regardless of human involvement horses will run, bulls will buck and dogs will hunt. But the day  I see a bear - of his won free will - strap on a pair of ice skates and  start playing hockey is the day I check myself into  therapy.