Photography by Jim Robertson
NO CAPTIVES ZONE!
All animals on this site were respectfully photographed in the wild.
Photographers and photo editors often do not differentiate between
animals in the wild or in captivity when selling and publishing images. Using these shots only supports and
encourages those who would profit from making their captives serve as
performers for photographers, entertainers for tourists or--when they get
older and their appeal begins to wane--as sitting ducks for trophy seekers
on canned hunting compounds.
New Rule
Children the world over are taught a version of the
golden rule, roughly along the lines of, “Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you.“ Kids are generally told that this
directive applies to everyone, from their parents and teachers to
their siblings and friends—not just to members of their in-group.
And a lot of parents wouldn‘t hesitate to invoke the golden rule to
stop a child from hurting the family pet. Yet for many people, the
bias of speciesism is so entrenched that they can‘t seem to
recognize a wild animal as a deserving other. But biases and isms
are not written in stone. If humanity keeps evolving along a
compassion continuum, we will inevitably apply the same rules of
consideration to all creatures who have the ability to think and
feel.
Perhaps it’s time to update and clarify the golden rule to read:
“Do unto other sentient beings as they would have you do unto them.”
If we live by a golden rule that includes all of the animal
kingdom, we will never keep anyone captive, trap, poison or snare
them or use them as living targets in a bloody, imbalanced game.
(The preceding was an excerpt from Jim Robertson's upcoming book,
Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of
a Dying Sport.
