Wildlife Education Through Empathy

When out in nature, it can be challenging to approach someone and explain that their actions may not actually be in the best interest of wildlife. These moments often feel tense, as we try to suppress our immediate emotions while hoping to positively influence how that person behaves in the future.

I try to enter most situations by giving people the benefit of the doubt, assuming they have good intentions but may lack the awareness to direct them properly. Experience has shown many times that things are rarely as simple as they appear on the surface. It helps to remember that mistakes are easy to make, and none of us reached our current level of understanding without making plenty ourselves. Use what you know to educate rather than blame or shame, because that is likely what you would have appreciated earlier in your own journey.

When your goal is to educate rather than place yourself on a moral high ground, people are often more willing to listen and reflect on their actions. They are far more receptive when they do not feel threatened or attacked. Not everyone will respond with the same openness, but you were never going to change the mind of someone who does not want to change. What matters is that you chose to try and approached the situation with good intentions. We do not need to reach everyone, only enough people to make the world a little better than it was the day before. Progress comes slowly, through both our words and the example we set.

From my own experience in wildlife photography, wildlife ethics is rarely an exact science. It is shaped by time in the field and by our evolving understanding of the species we encounter, which is still often quite limited.