Tiger at Ho Chi Minh City Zoo, Vietnam. Copyright www.thomaspickard.com

Day 2 in Vietnam and I wandered into the Royal Botanic Gardens looking for some relief from the heat and traffic. Little did I know, that it also housed the zoo.

For me, this photo sums up the zoo experience – distracting and disconnected.

Related Posts:

Vietnam Day 1. Ho Chi Minh City Arrival

Wild No More

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“If the world finds out what we do here, we will be shut down”

From the Oscar award winning documentary, The Cove

I could say so many things about The Cove after watching it. All you really need to know is this: see it.

Then get involved in some way, shape or form.

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Portrait of a dead shark, Pudu Market, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Female polar bear (Ursus maritimus) and two cubs on pack ice, Hinlopen Straight, Spitsbergen/Svalbard, Norway, on 28 July 2007. Polar bears primary habitat of sea ice is threatened due to global warming and rising temperatures in the Arctic regions.

This weeks photo from the archive comes from an ice floe in Hinlopen Straight in the Spitsbergen Islands, an island group north of Norway.

This photo was taken while I was working on the ice breaker the Akademik Sergey Vavilov. Chartered to Peregrine Adventures for polar expedition cruises, I was completing my first three-month trip in the Arctic, working as a guide and Assistant Expedition Leader. Not surprisingly, polar bears are a big drawcard for the people that board the ship every 10-days. Even more so given how threatened bears are due to rising temperatures and increased melting in the Arctic region.

One of the things that fascinates me about polar bears is our relationship to them.

On one hand, polar bears are the top predator in their environment. On the other, they are seen by a lot of people as these beautiful animals that are almost soft and cuddly. The truth is, polar bears are fascinating animals to be around. Polar bears aren’t dangerous to humans, until you put yourself in proximity to one. When you think of it that way, I am inclined to say that humans are dangerous to polar bears.

Personally, I think that polar bears wouldn’t be such a drawcard if you could just walk up to them with no risk of being mauled.

You can learn more about polar bears and conservation efforts at the Polar Bears International site.

[This image can be licensed for usage from Aurora Photos. Just double click on the photo to license it].

King Penguin, South Georgia.

When I came back from my second trip to Antarctica in March of 2004, I had some 75 rolls of Fuji Velvia. At 36-exposures a roll, that meant 2700 slides to deal with. At the time, it felt like a lot of photos.

Fast forward a couple of years and it isn’t unusual for me to produce 100′s of photos in just one morning. The last three days I was out shooting, I produced an average of 300 photos over a four hour period.

While there is no doubt my shooting has improved over the last 5-years, I have also been shooting a lot more things. The end result is a LOT of photos to import, edit and catalog each year.

Recently I have been spending some time going through my catalog and I inevitably come across random photos that are strong, but are not necessarily part of any one body of work.

I remember seeing a great series on photo pairing by Damon Winter over at the NY Times site. Influenced by that, I started looking again at these random photos and ways in which they could be paired. The photos above and below are just two examples of what I am talking about.

Ice and snow, Antarctica.

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Wild No More is a depressing insight into the world of zoo animals, locked up in artificially created environments, which are somehow suppose to replicate the animal’s natural habitat.

Wild No More is an ongoing personal project.

View the images at www.thomaspickard.com Go to ‘Projects’, then ‘Wild No More’

And if you like these images, please spread the word.

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Open air kitchen, Bangkok, Thailand.

Near Victory Monument, Bangkok, Thailand.

Big cat at Dusit Zoo, Bangkok, Thailand.

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This photo was taken on a magically calm and sunny day in Spitstbergen / Svalbard, just north of mainland Norway back in 2007 during a three-month trip amongst the islands.

The polar bear on the left is the mother and the two bears on the right are her cubs. Given the size of the two cubs they are probably 2 to 3 years of age and not that far off being left by their mother to defend for themselves as young adults.

Polar bear encounters in the wild are tricky business.

Finding polar bears requires a good strategy and lots of patience. When you add in photography you also want good shooting conditions, which means high sun and good contrast – something you rarely get in Svalbard!.

Understanding the characteristics of the animal you are looking for goes a long way with this.

The strategy to finding polar bears is this: go to their primary habitat during summer, which is sea ice.

Why sea ice?

Seals haul out on sea ice and seals are the primary diet of polar bears. And in case you are wondering why polar bears are threatened by global warming, it is because of this very reason. No more sea ice, means no more seals hauling out, means no more food for polar bears.

Once you have found yourself a good few square kilometres of sea ice (the bigger the better), you then have to find a bear. This requires untold scanning using a high quality pair of binoculars, which just happen to be one of the best things you can invest in for serious wildlife spotting (so don’t skimp!).

A polar bear moving is the easiest animal to spot, while a polar bear lying down is the hardest. Polar bears are not white, they are in fact a distinct pale whitish yellow. This means that they do stand out in the landscape if you know what you are looking for.

It all takes patience and a lot of it. It is more miss than hit.

If you find a bear on sea ice, then chances are you will find more. On the day this photo was taken, we saw a total of 13 bears which was pretty amazing. This bear encounter above lasted for over 2-hours.  You can see the bears were clearly undisturbed by our presence, which made this encounter even more amazing.

The name of the game is to have an encounter with a polar bear with the least amount of disturbance to the actual animal.

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