local wildlife at local zoo

rick93 · Jul 11, 2012

Hey friends,

I really enjoy taking care of wildlife and shooting them (with my canon lol). I friend of mine has a sanctuary about 15 min down the road from me which is a great place for taking shots of the local animals.
These were all shot with my Canon 450D (Rebel XSi

) + Tamron SP 70-300 VC (pretty much the only lens I use).
Hope you all like these and comments and critique will be very appreciated.

1. young female Patas monkey

2. again her

3. Male Vervet monkey

4. Nilecroc

5. ^^

6. Green tree viper

7. ^^^

Thanks for stopping by

PixelRabbit · Jul 11, 2012

Fantastic set! It was tough to choose but 1 3 and 6 are my favs.
Great work *two thumbs up*

rick93 · Jul 11, 2012

Thank you very much PixelRabbit

rick93 · Jul 13, 2012

Burmp:blushing:

Seefutlung · Jul 13, 2012

#3 is my fav.

Gary

CreAting iMagERy Art · Jul 13, 2012

Great work! 2 and 3 are my favorite, love the detail

JG_Coleman · Jul 14, 2012

I must say, I was originally tempted to look at this post because of the title, which struck me as a bit funny...

There's something contradictory about "wildlife at a zoo". The bugs flitting around on the zoo walkways are arguably more "wild" than the animals in the cages.

Anyhow, once I got here, I enjoyed the shots. Nice work!

LaFoto · Jul 14, 2012

I like the intensity in the viper's look in the last photo here, though the blurred foreground grasses are quite a bit distracting.
Which makes Photo 3 the best technically. Very sharp, very clear, very focused.

rick93 · Jul 16, 2012

katerine said:
I have seen too many unhappy animals in captivity, and it seems they are also distressing in acting as their species does in the wild. They must remain wild, for I have also seen by my own eyes they die lonely and scared, unless sadly bred in captivity. Let these animals be wild, for they are much, much happier.

Katerine, I absolutely agree, seriously. I absolutely love animals, but the situation here is different and very difficult. These animals in my friends sanctuary are mostly rescued babys from hunted and killed mothers. The only chance they have/had is being brought up (bottle fed) by humans. Otherwise they would have been 99.9% doomed. Seriously, everything gets killed here for food. I have and have had lots of wild animals. Usually when they are extremely small and helpless. Some of them died of wounds they got when their mother got shot some survive. I have had and currently have animals that cant be happier. I sometimes have them walking loose around the house and they won't leave. The problem with these rescued animals is that they can't be let loose any more, they are very used to humans and aren't scared at all. They would get killed as soon as a hunter/local sees them as they wouldn't run away.

I also really love it when animals are in their normal environment and not in captivity. Actually a year ago a local friend called me and said that he had a monkey for me. I really love monkeys so I rode the 5 hours out there on a motorcycle on horrible roads. After visiting with him for a while he gave me the monkey and I left. I quickly saw that this monkey was old enough to survive in the wild so as soon as I was out in the wild savannah I let him go. The poor monkey looked at me with the most grateful look and took off, in that situation it was possible to let the monkey go and I very gladly did.

If it wasn't that these animals wouldn't be killed with a 99% certainty, my friends sanctuary wouldn't be there. If you don't agree with me, buy a ticket and visit Ghana, come to the sanctuary, stay here for a while until we get a little rescued baby. You will understand.
Seriously, I want the best for the critters.

best regards