Tag: license

Lessons From Wildlife Photographers

  • Carl Sams and Jean Stoick have been photographing wildlife for more than two decades. (Photo by Charity Nebbe)

Wildlife photographers Carl Sams and Jean Stoick have been taking pictures of Michigan wildlife for more than twenty years. What started as a hobby has become a lucrative business and spawned two best-selling children’s books. But this year, the work has become about more than just taking beautiful pictures. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Charity Nebbe has the story:

Transcript

Wildlife photographers Carl Sams and Jean Stoick have been taking pictures of Michigan wildlife for more than twenty years. What started as a hobby has become a lucrative business and spawned two best-selling children’s books. But this year, the work has become about more than just taking beautiful pictures. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Charity Nebbe has the story:


(Sound of birds chirping)


It’s early morning, and Carl Sams and his wife and partner, Jean Stoick, have gotten up to take pictures of wildlife in the early morning light.


“Oh, look, we got a deer. Right out there in the water. Is that beautiful. This is incredible. The very doe – I worked here back in 1982 – she crossed this lake, just the lake here, and she was pregnant, and since then I’ve taken over a hundred thousand pictures. Now this doe, she’s actually out eating lily pads right now, and this is typical for deer at this time of year to do that.”


For Carl, taking pictures of wildlife came naturally; he’s always loved spending time outdoors.


“I grew up hunting and fishing, but I sold my guns and bows for a down payment on a lens and now I can shoot a hundred thousand deer and not be arrested, no seasons, no license, and I can be out here all the time. Not many people can make a living at something that they really love. This is a dream.”


When Carl started to make a living from his pictures, he and Jean bought a second camera so she could join him in the field. Most of their pictures are taken near their home at a park in southeast Michigan. And over the past twenty years, Carl and Jean seem to have developed a rapport with the creatures they photograph.


(Sound of camera)


“Okay, ready?”


Jean coaxes a wing-flap out of a female swan as if she was a fashion model.


“Okay, let’s do it.”


(Sound of camera snapping)


STOICK: “Wasn’t she perfect?”


NEBBE: “Exactly on cue.”


STOICK: “Exactly on cue.”


For many years, they sold prints of their work to magazines, calendars, greeting card companies, and on the art show circuit. Then recently, they decided to create a book about white-tailed deer. But as they were selecting their pictures, Jean’s imagination took them in another direction.


“I noticed that we had an awful lot of good images of the deer and birds interacting with a particular snowman that we had built three years earlier. So I mentioned to Carl, I says, ‘You know, why not do a children’s book? It would be a whole lot more fun.'”


That first book became the best-selling children’s book Stranger in the Woods. Their second book, Lost in the Woods, is the story of a fawn alone in the forest. All of the animals it encouters worry that the fawn is lost, but in the end, we learn its mother leaves the baby alone because it has no scent and won’t attract predators. She’s free to forage for food and come back later to take care of her fawn.


The pictures are meant to be beautiful and the book fun to read, but Carl and Jean are hoping the readers will remember what they learn.


“The lost fawn concept is a mistake that people make over and over every spring. They unintentionally rescue fawns that they think have been abandoned, and children are good messengers.”


The couple is working to spread their message with visits to elementary schools and libraries. That fills a lot of their days, but almost every morning and every evening, they can be found doing what they love to do most: taking pictures.


“It’s amazing how graceful she is. I think sometimes she likes to pose. Here she comes again.”


For the GLRC, I’m Charity Nebbe.

Related Links

Recent Deer Hunts Help Feed the Poor

  • Overpopulation of deer is causing problems for forest understory, farmers, and increased car/deer accidents. Some programs are encouraging hunters to take an extra deer and donating the meat to charity. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The hunting season for deer has ended or is about to end in most states. But the deer are still plentiful. Overpopulation of deer has led to an increase in deer-and-car crashes. Too many deer also damage the understory of forests. In some states, though, the deer overpopulation also means more deer meat is made available to low-income people. That’s because hunters, meat processors and food banks are working together to get venison to the poor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde
reports:

Transcript

The hunting season for deer has ended or is about to end in most states. But the deer are
still plentiful. Overpopulation of deer has led to an increase in deer and car crashes. Too
many deer also damage the understory of forests. In some states, though, the deer
overpopulation also means more deer meat is made available to low-income people.
That’s because hunters, meat processors and food banks are working together to get
venison to the poor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde reports:


It’s only been in the last decade or so that states have begun allowing hunters to donate
wild game to charitable organizations. In New York, meat processors and hunters started
the Venison Donation Coalition in 1998. Starting out, they gave a thousand pounds of
deer meat to food pantries in two counties.


Kathy Balbierer handles the coalition’s public relations. She says since that first thousand
pound donation, the program has grown…


“Last year, we had 108,000 pounds of venison donated, which on the average is, you
know – a deer is 40 pounds. It was approximately 27,000 deer. This year we have 119
participating processors throughout the state serving 52 counties.”


It’s an idea that hunters and meat processors across the nation are embracing. There are
venison donation programs in almost every state. Some, such as those in New York and
Illinois, are administered by state government. Others, like Michigan’s and Minnesota’s,
are run by private organizations.


Here’s how it works. First, a hunter who wants to donate meat takes it to a participating
processor. Ed Tanguey operates a meat processing facility in Kirkville, New York. He
says it’s a pretty simple process.


“Once the hunters show up to the building, we’ll have them come into our skinning room.
We’ll have them fill out some paperwork and once it’s brought in, we’ll start to skin the
deer, remove the hide and trim off any meat that’s not edible. We’ll bring the deer into
our cutting room.”


Butchers section the deer into shoulder, torso and hindquarters.


(sound of grinder starting up)


Then Tanguey sets up the grinder and grabs the meat from the cooler.


He packs the ground meat into five-pound black-and-white tubes and slaps a label on
with his name and the hunter’s license number on it.


Tanguey has processed 250 deer so far this season, 44 of them for the Venison Donation
Coalition. The coalition pays him a reduced rate, about a dollar a pound. Once there’s
enough meat in Tanguey’s cooler, he calls the Food Bank of Central New York to pick it
up.


Tanguey says this is his way of giving back to his community.


“When I see a hunter bringing in his son or grandson and they’re giving a second deer or
a third deer to the food bank, I think it’s going to pass it on to them. And years from now
we’ll keep the coalition supplied with some more food for the food bank.”


Jim Giacando is operations manager at the Food Bank of Central New York. He says
200 of the 600 agencies he works with ask for venison.


“In our freezer, we have almost 1,000 lbs ready to distribute, and it’s already committed
to a number of agencies throughout our 11-county area. And we’ll be distributing it this
week and next week, and then hopefully we’ll receive more in and fill more orders.”


The food bank will receive venison up until January. But Giacando says the greatest
challenge is keeping up with the demand for deer meat. A lot of people want it.


“I think we actually may have to get to a point where we might have to say ‘you know,
you can’t order that much. We have to keep it for all the other programs.'”


(ambient sound in church)


One of the food pantries asking for the deer meat is the University United Methodist
Church in Syracuse, New York. Norma Goel ordered venison from Giacando’s food
bank. The church’s food pantry feeds about 150 people every week.


Goel says she can’t buy as much food for the pantry as she’d like to because of the
church’s limited budget and an increase in the number of poor people asking for food.
She says farm-raised meat is a high-priced commodity…


“We’re always looking for a way to provide meat to participants in the pantry. And it’s
become increasingly difficult to buy frozen meat that the food bank has. By and large,
we’re not purchasing frozen meat from the food bank because we can’t afford it.”


So the deer meat is a cheaper alternative. Last year, Goel ordered venison too late to
receive any. This year she got all she could for the pantry: 60 pounds. She only has to
pay the handling costs – the coalition covers processing.


Goel says she’ll encourage people to use the deer meat in place of ground beef because
it’s high in protein and low in fat. She says the 60 pounds will feed a lot of hungry people
in her community.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Skye Rohde.

Related Links

Turtle Numbers Down; Trapping Banned

  • Joanna Schmidt, a student at Minnesota State University-Moorhead, is part of a long-term turtle research project. She's trying to find out why turtle populations are declining in the Midwest. For her research, she catches turtles and gives them an identifying mark, then weighs and measures them before putting them back in the water. (Photo by Dan Gunderson.)

Many Great Lakes states are taking steps to protect turtles. There’s a big demand for turtles in Asia and Europe. But too much trapping can damage wild turtle populations. As a result, states are placing bans or restrictions on turtle trapping. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Gunderson reports:

Transcript

Many Great Lakes states are taking steps to protect turtles. There’s a big demand for turtles in
Asia and Europe. But too much trapping can damage wild turtle populations. As a result, states
are placing bans or restrictions on turtle trapping. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Dan Gunderson reports:


(sound of paddling)


Joanna Schmidt pushes a canoe into a small slough in northern Minnesota. She paddles toward a
floating rectangle of plastic pipe. The simple device is a turtle trap. It’s about four feet long with
net in the bottom and a board attached to the side.


“We put a plank on the side and they crawl up to sun themselves and they
just fall in. It’s pretty simple. No mechanics to it. They do all the work for us.”


Joanna Schmidt is a student at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She’s
part of a long-term turtle research project. Researchers want to learn
more about turtle habitat, and why there’s been a recent decline in turtle
populations.


This slough is about a quarter mile across. It lies in a hollow surrounded
by farm fields. Chest high grass and reeds line the water’s edge. Along one end, dead,
sunbleached trees stick out of the water. It’s perfect turtle habitat.


“It’s warm, a lot of food for them, not very many predators, so they like it,
especially having the dead trees with a place to hang out and sun themselves. So this is
very typical.”


Gunderson: “Any estimate of how many turtles might live in a slough this size?”


“Not just yet. That’s what we’re hoping to get to. And that’s what the DNR would
like to know.”


There are several turtles in the trap. Most have been caught before.
They’re identified by small notches in their shells. Schmidt weighs and measures
each turtle before gently setting them back in the water.


Minnesota State University Moorhead Biology professor Donna Stockrahm is
directing this research project. She says it takes years of research to get meaningful data about
turtles. They grow very slowly and they live a long time.


Stockrahm is hoping to learn about rates of turtle mortality, growth rates,
and the optimum habitat for turtles.


She’s seen a puzzling decline in turtle numbers.


“We started this in 2001 and they marked over 250 turtles. Then in 2002
the number just dropped drastically. And there seemed to be fewer turtles
around, even turtles that you see out sunning themselves on rocks and limbs and
dead tree trunks and things like that.”


Stockrahm says she doesn’t have an explanation for the decline. She’s
waiting to see if the trend continues this year.


Turtles are in demand in Europe for pets, and in Asia for
traditional medicines. More than seven million turtles are
exported from the United States each year.


Minnesota Department of Natural Resources researcher Rich Baker says
trapping is one reason turtle populations are down.


“What we’ve learned relatively recently is that especially in northern
latitudes commercial harvest really isn’t sustainable. These populations
of slowly maturing species just can’t sustain harvest of adults from the
population.”


Rich Baker says demand for turtles is driven largely by Asian and European
markets. Baker says many Asian turtle species are endangered because of
overharvest.


Those markets are turning to North America which is a particularly turtle-rich
part of the world and the upper Midwest which is a particularly
turtle-rich part of North America. Many of the states in the upper Midwest
have actually closed commercial turtle harvest completely.”


Most Great Lakes states now ban or restrict turtle trapping. Rich Baker
says Minnesota decided to phase out commercial harvest. He says about a dozen
people make a living trapping turtles. They’ll be allowed to continue.


People who like to eat turtle can still get a license to trap for personal
use. But there will be no new commercial turtle trapping licenses.
Minnesota will allow turtle farms as an alternative to harvesting wild turtles.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Gunderson in Moorhead, Minnesota.