Bear and Wolf Photo Commentary

Wildlife Photography: The Cheat Hidden Behind the Perfect Shot

Photographers wait in hides, sometimes for a fee, for an animal, attracted by fish or carcasses deliberately placed there, to come in front of their camera.

Staged animals, carcasses used as bait… Many wildlife photographers cheat to capture the perfect shot—including some major award winners.

Once upon a time, there was a story of friendship between a bear and a female wolf, hunting side by side in the heart of a peat bog. An “unlikely Romeo and Juliet” brought together by fate. But appearances are deceiving; this tale was entirely fabricated. A few months ago, Pierre Girard wrote to Reporterre to express his astonishment. While in North Karelia—a remote region of Finland—to study bears, this aspiring naturalist caught a glimpse of the surprising reality behind the scenes of wildlife photography: “Big names in the field cheat, and I have proof.”

At the other end of the line, agitation and bitterness mingle in the man’s voice. He describes a well-oiled system of hides—rented by renowned photographers—situated on the edge of a boreal forest. “An employee arrives on a snowmobile with two pig carcasses in tow. He hangs them from a tree to keep predators from making off with them.” Salmon and dog kibble are buried all around to entice wolverines, bears, and wolves to dig up the earth—all positioned, of course, in the perfect line of sight for the camera lenses.

Despite its relative obscurity, this practice appeals to a great many photographers—including some of the most highly acclaimed. From November 16 to 19, the Haute-Marne region hosts the discipline’s international festival. Olivier Larrey is the featured artist this year, having designed the poster for this 26th edition. As the event’s patron, the Frenchman previously won the competition’s Grand Prize in 2021; his masterpiece captured a wolverine fleeing from a pursuing raven in the midst of a storm—an unusual ballet witnessed at the very location described by Pierre Girard.

“Getting a proper shot of this animal takes at least ten years without using gimmicks,” reckons Swiss photographer Neil Villard. “It should be a lifelong quest, not a three-day affair.” In 2010, he too tried out the Finnish hides. “A guy handed me a bag of kibble and left me to fend for myself.” No sooner had he scattered the food than a bear poked its snout out, drawn by the scent. “And that was a shock. I thought to myself: ‘Damn, you’ve sold your soul to the devil.’ I was sickened; my work had suddenly lost all meaning.”

Faced with such accounts, the romanticized image of the wildlife photographer wavers. The rugged adventurer lugging his gear in search of tracks seems a distant memory—as does the dampness of the forest floor seeping into a motionless, camouflaged body huddled at the base of a tree.

So, some keep the behind-the-scenes details of their work under wraps. The day after his big win, Olivier Larrey posted the award-winning image on Instagram—without ever mentioning the baiting setup used. “As soon as I commented on the post, he deleted my message and blocked me,” recalls Pierre Girard.

Inside the hunting blinds, beds and sometimes even showers and toilets are made available to customers.

The photographer is far from the only one involved in this ruse. Swedish photographer Staffan Widstrand—an eleven-time winner at the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition—employs the same practices, as do Finland’s Niko Laurila (54,600 Instagram followers) and Elias Kalliola (64,600 followers), and photographer Lassi Rautiainen, who also manages the hides in question. And the list goes on.

“It makes me deeply sick,” says professional photographer Myriam Dupouy. “If you can’t feel admiration, you should at least have respect for wildlife. How do these people dare to exhibit such work, or even submit it to competitions?” In her view, these images are worth little more than those taken in zoos. Having served as a judge in major competitions many times, she notes that debates often become heated when it comes time to choose between entries.

An open secret

So, what do the judges actually know about these questionable methods? The year Olivier Larrey won the award, his counterpart Louis-Marie Préau chaired the committee: “There are certain images I eliminated right off the bat,” he confirms—specifically, those taken from paid hides where the subjects are lured with food. “You can often spot them at a glance. And between us, winning an award for a photo where you didn’t actually do anything—that’s a problem.”

A simple error of judgment or an outright lie? One thing is certain: Olivier Larrey’s work evidently slipped through this screening process. And when this is pointed out to him, the jury president retreats into an awkward silence: “He’s a real pro,” he mumbles. “He enjoys genuine freedom out there and can choose his position. There is real artistic vision involved.” Without even pleading oversight or a lapse of memory, Louis-Marie Préau thus completely changes his tune: “I’m no zealot. Nowadays, it’s all extremists. I’m not necessarily against baiting. I’ve done it myself.”

Christophe Pereira, director of the Montier-en-Der festival, takes the same line. Did he know the circumstances under which the 2021 prize-winning shot was taken? “I don’t want to answer that question,” he says over the phone. And what about the 2023 festival poster image? All he will say is that he has no regrets about the choice and can look at himself in the mirror: “We aren’t the intelligence services. Besides, what’s the difference between that and someone putting a nesting box right outside their door to photograph goldfinches?” The guiding principle is clear: “An image is beautiful—period. There’s no need for controversy,” asserts Christophe Pereira.

As discussions unfolded, the director and the jury president eventually admitted it: both had acted with full awareness. Yet, in its official communications, the international festival presents ethics as an “inseparable part of its identity.” In 2021, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the lens manufacturer Tamron developed a Wildlife Photography Charter. Designed as a set of guidelines prioritizing animal welfare, the document urges people “not to feed or bait animals.” The festival promoted this initiative.

Salmon live in the meadows.

Olivier Larrey, for his part, opts for honesty. The forty-something believes there is no alternative to supplementary feeding if one wishes to observe these legendary creatures—bears and wolves. Yet, ceasing to photograph them would condemn them to a dangerous invisibility: “If no one cares anymore about the persecution they face, what will become of them? Aphrodisiacs for wealthy Chinese buyers?” he wrote in an email exchange with Pierre Girard that Reporterre was able to review.

“I don’t believe at all in keeping nature under a glass bell jar,” he explains by phone. “These images play an essential educational role.” Olivier Larrey describes the sense of wonder shown by children in schools when they see images of these iconic predators—an emotion capable of sowing seeds and creating future ambassadors for the cause of animal welfare. “Thanks to this, I can talk to them about the wildlife in their own gardens. It’s a gateway to taking an interest in tits, swallows, and hedgehogs.”

Pig carcasses—never visible in the award-winning images—are used to lure predators close to the photographers.

Do the ends justify the means?

Certainly not, in the view of Vincenzo Penteriani. A Spanish bear specialist with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), he asserts that providing easy, predictable food sources leads to artificial—and harmful—aggregations of animals.

“The collateral effects are numerous: increased fighting, the spread of disease, and alterations to daily and seasonal activity patterns… even infanticide, if females with cubs encounter adult males during the mating season.”

Often, the food provided is unsuitable—such as dog kibble—or of poor quality, involving “farmed salmon laden with chemicals.” Furthermore, the cubs learn to rely on these human-sourced foods: “This can have disastrous consequences when they leave their mothers,” notes Vincenzo Penteriani. “Especially if they come to believe that salmon live in open meadows.”

Another significant issue is habituation to humans, which poses dangers for both parties. For years, Swiss photographer Neil Villard pursued the wild dream of capturing the Siberian tiger on camera. “I spent hours upon hours perched in a tree. The conditions were terrible,” he recalls with a smile. “It was a spectacular challenge… and I didn’t succeed.”

Despite facing some frustrations, the photographer does not regret working without artificial aids: “This species lives far from humans for a good reason: coexistence is impossible. Luring them with bait risks drawing them closer to us. All conservation efforts would be instantly undone… just for a picture.”

When asked about this, Olivier Larrey admits he does not know the exact cost of such an intrusion into these mammals’ lives. “What I see is that they are escaping something far worse… a gunshot! So, between eating a few scraps given by humans and taking a bullet, I think the choice is clear.”

Stolen Stories

To maintain a presence on social media, photographers must play the algorithm game—in other words, publish content daily to stand out amidst growing competition. “And then, the public wants access to everything, right away,” laments photographer Camille Poirot. “This consumption pattern drives some toward excessive productivity, even if it means resorting to practices that are the antithesis of what our profession should be.”

Beyond the use of baited hides, “there are sort of lynx farms in the Czech Republic,” reports YouTuber and cameraman Fabien Wohlschlag. Since the animals are trained to strike a pose on specific rocks, photographers simply have to press the shutter button.

It is a concept also adopted in the United States for cougars: “The worst part of it all is that some people steal—from ethical photographers—the stories of adventure and self-confrontation that they themselves missed out on,” he continues. “The public is naive, but how could anyone suspect such a deception?”

Another example of deception occurred in 2017, when Brazilian photographer Marcio Cabral was named the winner of the prestigious international Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. However, following a meticulous investigation a few months later, he was stripped of the award. The anteater shown attacking a glowing termite mound in his night-time shot was, in fact… stuffed.

Southeast Asia excels in the category of tropical frogs striking bizarre poses. Stacked on top of one another, straddling an insect, or using a mushroom as an umbrella—these amphibians display remarkable inventiveness. Or rather, the people who take them out of the freezer do: “If it doesn’t kill them, it puts them to sleep long enough for photographers to position them however they like,” explains Camille Poirot.

Other professionals turn them into puppets by piercing their webbed toes with wire, notes Myriam Dupouy—techniques also used on mice and butterflies.

Closer to home, photographers are condemning the kingfishers unlucky enough to cross their paths to a near-certain death. In 2015, Scotsman Alan McFadyen captured a stunning image of the small blue-and-rust-colored bird mid-dive, its beak skimming the water’s surface just before snatching a small fish—a unique shot, free of even the slightest splash. It took the artist 4,200 hours and 720,000 attempts to pull off such a feat.

“Now, many people try to imitate him by setting up aquariums at water level to lure the birds,” says Fabien Wohlschlag. “The problem is, when they dive straight down, the kingfishers slam into the glass, break their beaks, and crash.”

This shift in the discipline—a sad sight to behold—stems largely from the financial difficulties facing some professionals. “Who today can afford to spend ten years working on wolves, only to come away with three or four images? Only the ultra-wealthy photographers,” argues Olivier Larrey. “Let’s be pragmatic.” It is up to each individual to draw the fine line between ethics and profitability.