Don’t ask. Don’t tell.

There’s something corruptive about secrets. But also something tantalizing. 

A bit of hard-earned advice: Think twice about posting photos that show where vulnerable animals and plants are. Don’t ask experts where to find them, unless you have a true need. It’s a bit painful to say no to well-meaning enthusiasts.

I have been lucky enough to see the one spot in northern Illinois where the orange-fringed orchid grows. I needed to, to cut brush and protect it. Most people don’t need to know.

It’s a very beautiful plant. If we were to give out secret locations of such plants, some people would skulk out there and dig them up – then bring them home to die – until there were no more. Consider this last yellow lady’s-slipper:

“For a few weeks each spring, a lone guard monitors the moors of northern England. This warden pitches a tent in a remote field to watch over a prize so rare that collectors have been known to break laws, trek into deep jungles, and risk capture by guerillas in its pursuit. The object? A single lady’s slipper orchid, Cypripedium calceolus—the last wild plant of its kind left in the United Kingdom.”

I knew of two yellow lady-slipper plants in Northbrook forest preserves. Both are gone. In the case of the most recent one, a deer ate it, and it never came back.

But a tour guide with the McHenry County Conservation District some years back showed the hushed crowd a magical little stand of prairie lady-slippers. The next day there were holes in the ground where they’d been.

When Bluff Spring Fen, after decades of decline, got its first burns and brush control, we noticed, to our amazement, unexpectedly, rewardingly, a lone prairie lily in bloom next to a marl flat. To take a photo of this semi-magical recovery, I came back with my camera and found a hole where the lily had been. None has been seen there since. Too many people? No. Too few. I wish a conservationist had been standing there when selfish evil appeared with trowel in hand. 

And these concerns and ethics don't apply only to the very rare. The photo above shows a blue-gray gnatcatcher building a nest. Photographer Jerry Goldner did not reveal the nest's location while it was active. 

Once I showed some well-meaning people a pair of gnatcatchers building a nest. My friends were not as restrained as they needed to be, and the gnatcatchers left the site. In that case, bit-by-bit, they took all their nest material with them. Perhaps little harm done - but we can and want to be better than this. Yes? (More on bird photography ethics below.) 

Talk about rare? There’s nothing rarer and more important on a global basis than the few surviving acres of “Grade A” very-high-quality original tallgrass prairie. For a time I took selected people to see remnants, long ago, when the priority seemed to be to get sufficient people to care. (Decades ago, the Superintendent of Conservation of the Cook County Forest Preserves said to a colleague: “You want me to put resources into prairies? The number of Cook County voters who care about prairie I could count on the fingers of one hand.” To give him credit, as constituency for ecosystem conservation increased, he became a good leader.) 

It’s hard to see a rare prairie without standing on it, which damages. If everyone mildly interested in seeing the last best prairies went and stood on them, they’d be gone. We are restoring large acreages; it has to be enough for people to see the best of those. Or to see the advertised nature preserve prairies where paths are maintained, to keep feet off the rest. 

At one point in my role as Director of Public Information for the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, I led a series of what we called “buffalo tours.” I took people across high-quality nature in obscure places. I hoped the education and community building was worth the damage. I would not feel right doing the same thing today. 

This smooth green snake (below) gave me that look, last week, at an undisclosed location. It’s sad but true that there are people who would go to the last habitats of rare reptiles and poach them. 

Case in point, about an amphibian: a post on-line revealed where blue-spotted salamanders could be found as they travelled to mating ponds. A nice family went there, captured one, brought it home, and posted their exploit on-line. We need to do better than that. Amphibians taken from their habitats and later re-released sometimes bring viruses that kill the whole population. Don’t post photos of sensitive species and give their locations while they’re vulnerable.

What happens when photos reveal the location of rare birds' nests? The nestlings may die indirectly from the "traffic jam of people" trying to find them. Predators are attracted, and parent birds can't protect while distracted. Birders have developed "rules" and "ethics" for photographing birds, birds' nests, and wildlife generally.

Case in point: wild leeks or ramps. These are not rare plants; they’re just declining in many areas through loss of habitat and, in some cases, poaching. In high quality oak woodlands, leeks can be common. But if people dig them up, an irreplaceable community of rare plants and animals can be damaged. 

In more rural areas, regulated hunting and gatherings may be sustainable. But in the Chicago metro area, there aren’t remotely enough of these slow-growing plants. News media have recently promoted the idea of “foraging” for them. People show up at the preserves, wanting to dig them. Stewards have to explain: "I'm sorry; you've been misled. It’s illegal." But stewards don’t want to spend our time as police. Long ago, ginseng and goldenseal were common; they’re gone, from foraging. As H.S. Pepoon reported, the fringed gentian mostly vanished the same way.  

We try, but we don’t catch everybody. For a little atrocity last week, see below: 

Before: a rare associations of trilliums, bellworts, trout lily, yellow violets, long-awned woodgrass, and the endangered awnless graceful sedge

After: ravaged flora and dirt. If you see poachers, they may be just uninformed and well-intentioned. Be friendly and explain, if that works. Or call 911.

Unlike with birders, plant photographers don’t have a well-developed consensus and culture about stewardship. If a rare plant is in bloom, twenty feet off the trail, in a very high-quality area, how much trampling (of rarer plants not yet in bloom) is that photo worth? Is perhaps a good photo available from the trail, fifty feet ahead? 

Does everyone truly need, regardless of the cost to biodiversity, their own personal photo of every rare animal and plant? Might we, in the end, feel better about low-impact photos? New pictures that hurt biodiversity are like blood diamonds. They’re unethical. Don’t traffic in them.

This blog tries to do its part. We’d be glad to hear from anyone who has ideas about how to improve our culture of stewardship. 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all the ethical photographers who have done so much for the planet. It is challenging to balance how much good a photo can do against the damage that may result. 

Thanks to Jerry Goldner for links on ethical bird and wildlife photography. 

Orange-fringed orchid photo by Robin Street-Morris. Google has hundreds more by Robin and many, many others. How many more does conservation need? It's fun and rewarding to take a beautiful photo. But how much damage to the surrounding rare habitats is that photo worth? These questions should be considered and discussed. Off-trail hiking without a permit is (or used to be) against the law in Illinois Nature Preserves. But it's not possible to police everything. Most good behavior needs to come from culture and ethics. Let's get there!

Thanks for edits to Eriko Kojima and Christos Economou.