Parachuting Cats into Borneo
In the early 1950’s, the Dayak people in Borneo suffered tragically from malaria and the World Health Organization (WHO) helped them by spraying DDT to kill the mosquitoes which
Parachuting Cats into Borneo
In the early 1950’s, the Dayak people in Borneo suffered tragically from malaria and the World Health Organization (WHO) helped them by spraying DDT to kill the mosquitoes which carried the malaria. The mosquitoes died, malaria declined, but there were side effects. Among the first was the fact that the roofs of the houses began to fall down. DDT not only killed the mosquitoes, it killed a parasitic wasp that controlled thatch-eating caterpillars. The DDT poisoned insects were consumed by geckoes, which were eaten by cats. The cats died and the rats flourished and the population was threatened by outbreaks of sylvatic plaque and typhus. To handle this mess, the World Health Organization felt “obliged to parachute live cats into Borneo”. [Research by the Rocky Mountain Institute (Lovins and Lovins, 1990)]
This illustrates how fragile the food chain and the ecology of the world is. We need to protect it for ourselves and from ourselves. From a photographer’s point of view, the more succesful we are at preserving the natural world, the more opportunities we will have to photograph it.
We believe that each person must listen to their own moral and social value system to determine the extent they must go to protect nature. To help you establish your own policy, we offer ours.
You are guests in their home
No matter how friendly the wild animals seem, no matter how closely they resemble Disney characters, they are not. You have left the security of your known “human” world of paved streets and boxed-in homes to visit their homes. Remember they are wild. You are not meeting Bambi, Thumper, Mickey Mouse, or Winnie the Poo.
- Smell the flowers but don’t smell them to death
- Enjoy the meadows but don’t trample them. How long is too long for a guest to “visit”? Fish and house guests both smell after three days. Know when you’ve overstayed your welcome. Take your trash with you when you go and leave the world a better place than you found it.
- Do no harm
- We feel victimized and angry when we have been burglarized or vandalized and fight back through the political, legal and protective (police) services. Animals have no such recourse.
- Everyone is watching
- Ethics dictate what you do when you think no one is looking. The attitude that “no one is looking so I can do what I want” is not a license to harass or endanger the animals. Behave as if the world is watching.
- Do not disturb
- Migrating birds travel thousands of miles to their Arctic nesting grounds and gather in special places along the way to feed. All of their energy is dedicated to this process. Di