Wild animals in National Parks are just that, wild. Think before you try to take that same close up bear picture you saw on National Geographic’s Instagram.
By: Rachel Cooper
She just stood there staring at us. At Glacier National Park this past summer, my family and I walked a trail around Josephine Lake and Swiftcurrent Lake after having hiked up to Grinnell Glacier. We came around a bend in the narrow trail through the lakeside woods and suddenly my dad, who was leading the pack, just stopped. There standing in the middle of the path was a huge moose. She stared at us and then began walking toward us. While my mom and I scrambled backwards, my dad and my oldest cousin stood where they were, taking advantage of the opportunity to take close up pictures. My dad posted the picture on Facebook and it got more likes and comments than most of the other nature photos or the photos of our family that he posted from the trip.
What my dad discovered was what many people before him already have, that wild animals play really well on social media. It’s something that National Parks themselves have taken into account on their own social media feeds. Photos of wildlife just tend to earn more likes than people or physical natural features. On November 26, the official Instagram of Glacier National Park posted an incredible picture of the mountain Little Matterhorn covered in snow. The photo got 10.5k likes and 47 comments. Just a month earlier on October 24, the same official Glacier Instagram posted a photo of a bull moose swimming through the water and only his head and shoulders were visible. This photo got 16.1k likes and 156 comments. This is seen across national park social medias. Last December, National Geographic, the most popular account on Instagram, published an online article with photo slideshow, “Our 18 Most Popular Instagram Photos of 2017.” Of the 18 most popular Instagram photos on the National Geographic Instagram last year, 15 were of animals.
It’s not surprising that people like pictures of animals. They are often beautiful and fascinating. But what is odd is the way people portray them. I would argue that they’re portrayed as cute and cuddly instead of wild, fearsome, untamed, and worthy of being revered. And that changes people’s perceptions of these animals in real life too. When people see these animals in person, they start to react in the same ways they might to a stuffed animal and not to something wild. When I see a photo on my Instagram or Facebook feed of a close up photo of an animal, I wonder about the danger in taking it. This past summer I was in Rwanda, Africa on a safari in Akagera National Park. We stayed at a lodge that baboons had also taken as their home. A couple of my friends wandered into the brush behind the lodge to get a closer picture of the baboons and the next thing I know, they came sprinting out of the trees. The baboon that they were so sure was cute and photogenic, aggressively jumped out the brush bearing his teeth and scared the life out of them, but then thankfully ran off. They were thinking about their picture, not the wildness of the animal.
But this imagery of wildlife is problematic, blurring the boundary between what’s wild and what’s not. I love the outdoors and to me nature is something to stand back and be in awe of its wonder. I have been to eleven national parks and I still find myself breathless before the immensity of creation and the wildlife that call it home. Is cutesiness really the way to revere nature? Or does it make us feel like it’s another place we’ve domesticated? How does our view on wild animals, in part thanks to social media, change how we take photos of animals in national parks?
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Visitation to national parks has risen as its social media presence has increased.
The red dot marks 2009, the year Facebook was created. The purple dot marks 2010, the year Instagram was created. The trend-line that shows a general trend of increasing number of visitors to national parks is shown going right between 2009 and 2010 when the National Park Service created their social medias. Just coincidence or is the trend increase related to growing social media presence by national parks?
There are a number of ways that wild animal photos make the wildlife seem domesticated. One is naming the animals. At Katmai National Park and Preserve, 480 Otis the bear is a local celebrity having won Katmai’s Fattest Bear Championship in both 2016 and 2017. According to an article in Backpacker, “each fall, rangers in Alaska's Katmai National Park pit the park's brown bears against each other in a March Madness-style bracket, monitoring the bruins as they gorge themselves on fish and pack on winter weight. Each week, the fattest bears (as determined by a vote) advance, until only one ultra-chubby champ remains.” 480 Otis is an 1,000 carnivore wild bear with sharp teeth and claws. But since he has a name and won a fat competition he no longer seems threatening or wild.
National park social medias also put cute little captions next to animal pictures, which make wild animals seem like they have friendly personalities. On October 24, the National Park Service Instagram posted a photo of an owl in the the Lake Mead National Recreation Area with the comment “I am Hoot” referencing the popular movie Guardians of the Galaxy and the character who always says “I am Groot”. So now every tourist wants to take an up close photo of animals like owls in the parks. But taking photos that close can be dangerous for people and wildlife.
In 2015, a woman tried to take a selfie with her daughter 6 feet away from a bison at Yellowstone National Park and was attacked and thrown into air. The bison ran at her and caught her, ripping her clothes, as he threw her into the air with his head and horns. Lucky for her, she only had minor injuries. This past June a crowd of people at Yellowstone got within 10 yards of a bison and the animal got agitated and charged the group, goring a woman. She too thankfully only had minor injuries. People become so concerned with taking a great picture of an animal up close that they lose sight of the fact that animals often are not as docile as they appear in the still photographs they see on Instagram.
Mississippi woman tossed by bison in 2015 when her and her daughter tried to take a selfie with the bison.
For most wildlife, like moose, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer, and coyotes, visitors are to be at least 75 feet (25 yards/23 meters) away. For wolves, grizzly and black bears, visitors need to be at least 300 feet (100 yards/91.4 meters) away.
It’s clear that social media’s role in understanding how humans use the outdoors is expanding alongside its presence in our lives. While nobody should be trying to cozy up to a bison for a selfie, the integration of social media and the outdoors might yet have some silver linings. Some photos of animals in the parks are posted to inform tourists about these animals. The National Park Service posted a photo of cutthroat fish 3 days ago to inform people about Glacier’s catch and release policies.
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While appreciation for wildlife is important, I started to wonder where the portrayal of animals as cartoonish characters come from.
In March of 2018, History.com published an article about the history of national parks and the rise of nature conservation. The story explains that this movement began with transcendentalism in the 19th-century with writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman who drew inspiration from nature and artists such as Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Albert Bierstadt who depicted the beauty of the American landscape.
Many Americans at this time believed in Manifest Destiny, or America’s moral mission to expand westward. Nature was something that was meant to be conquered and tamed. But as settlers and explorers traveled the West, they discovered awe-inspiring scenery in places such as California’s Yosemite Valley and along Wyoming’s Yellowstone River. Men like John Muir began to travel to these wonders and spread the news of a West soaked in natural beauty, Americans began to develop a sense of national pride in these wilderness areas. Prominent citizens advocated for the protection of such areas from commercial interest and development.
In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln responded to pressure by conservationists and created the Yosemite Grant Act to protect land in the Yosemite Valley which set a precedent for national conservation. In 1872, Yellowstone was created as the first American national park. And in 1916, Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service. The mission of the agency was to “provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
But since then, what’s happened is that wilderness areas have become yet more spaces that are dominated by people. What used to be awe-inspiring because of its wilderness and its potential danger, has now become tame. Social media offers a way to show just how humans have taken over. It is encouraging people to do whatever it takes to get an incredible picture to share with the world and suddenly, leaving the parks (and the wildlife in them) “unimpaired for the enjoyed of future generations” is no longer the priority.
“Much of social media is to provide the opportunity to connect to the park and the park resources if people cannot visit the park, as well as provide safety messaging to those who do visit” said a park ranger at the North Cascades National Park, Katy Hooper. This may be the intention but social media has larger impacts beyond safety messages and important information.
When tourists go into the parks and try to take photos of wildlife like they see on social media, they don’t realize that the professionals who take those photos take them carefully without disturbing the wildlife.
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So here’s a glimpse at what actual wildlife photographers do.
Professional wildlife photographer Joye Ardyn Durham takes many of the photos for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and she walked me through how professionals take animal photos and what people should know about photographing wild animals.
For a camera, Durham uses either a Sony A7RIII or Nikon D750 with mostly telephoto lenses. And to get photos she keeps far enough away from the animals to keep them comfortable. “I don’t want to stress the animal at all. That is why I choose to use longer telephoto lenses and my camera has such high resolution that I am able to crop a bit if needed” said Durham.
Disclaimer: I took this photo in Glacier National Park from the path without disturbing the mountain goats.
The most important element in wildlife photography is patience.
“I will wait for them. I have taken photos of bears from the sunroof of my car which was great. The bears didn’t even know I was there and I was able to get some great shots.”
She also believes that social media photos of wildlife influences tourists trying to take close up animal pictures. “Putting a disclaimer on the photography might help, but really people need to be smarter about the dangers of wild animals” Durham said.
“I think some people do not have respect for the animal and when Instagram or Facebook sharing becomes more important than the animal I have a hard time with it.” said Durham. “I have seen some folks try to get a selfie with a wild bear, that to me is way over the boundary.”
Her advice to tourists who want to take photos of wildlife in national parks is this:
“Use a longer lens so you don’t have to get close enough to be in danger. Safety needs to be the priority. Also focus on the eyes, the eyes is where the story is. I use a long lens with a tripod in order to get the sharpest photo I can. Be patient. Sometimes waiting and being still can be rewarded with a million dollar shot.”
It’s not just photographers like Durham who realize there is a problem with how visitors are attempting to photograph animals in the parks. Many national parks have created pledges or social media hashtags to promote safe pictures and conservation.
Yellowstone created the Yellowstone Pledge that they encouraged visitors to sign, and in doing so, visitors agree to help protect Yellowstone by following these guidelines: Practice safe selfies by never approaching animals to take a pictures. Stay on boardwalks in thermal areas. Protect hot springs by not throwing anything into them. Park in designated areas and avoid blocking traffic. Stay with your car if you are stuck in a wildlife jam. Follow speed limits and pull over to let cars pass. Travel safely in bear country by carrying bear spray, making noise, and hiking in groups. Keep food away from animals. Recycle what you can and put garbage in bear-proof containers. Tell a ranger, or call 911, if I see someone whose behavior might hurt them or the park.
Glacier created a hashtag #ProtectGlacier to encourage visitors to the park to be mindful about what they post on social media. Posting about conservation, leave no trace, and safety, helps spread and support the mission of the National Park Service. It functions off of these ideas: Encourage positive behavior. Avoid giving directions to areas off trail. Consider the impacts a location geotag might have on a sensitive environment before posting. Be mindful of what your images portray (don’t share illegal or unsafe behavior). Don’t be the person who posts a selfie while feeding wildlife. If park staff sees those kinds of posts you may receive a citation in the mail. Do not advertise commercial services. Commercial photographers, product ambassadors, and other marketers require permits.
Social media causes visitors to compete for the best animal photographs and for some people getting that incredible picture for Facebook or Instagram means crossing boundaries that should separate man and wild. People are so focused on getting an amazing video for their social media accounts that they miss what is right in front of them. Put your phone away and look around you. It happened even if you didn’t post it, I promise.
I have realized that the next time I go into nature, I need to appreciate what I see instead of spending so much time trying to get a perfect picture for my Instagram. It’s not worth missing out on what’s right in front of me, or even worse putting myself in danger, for a picture of a wild animal.