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Preservation and Protection of Wildlife Through Photography (cont.)

When you put the welfare of the creature you're photographing above the photograph itself, you impose limits on what you can do. "There's no margin for mistakes," Moose says. "Anything I do can affect or harm the species I want to document. Each species is different, and I need to know what's needed to get close enough, but not too close." Equipment plays a big part here, as Moose relies on long telephoto lenses when he's working near fragile habitats.

There are times, however, when he won't share everything he knows. "I recently photographed a moth that was thought to be extinct since 1982. I can't reveal the location in my photographs because we don't want collectors going there. Sometimes the work is just that serious."

When Moose says "we," he means the biologists he often works with. "Their main thing is collecting data," he says, "and I can't be upsetting or changing things. Life has to unfold as if I weren't there."

Moose has been a professional photographer for 20 years, and for all that time he's kept one rule in mind: "I won't take any photograph that may sacrifice the welfare of the subject. No photo is that important to me." But it should never come to that choice—"not if you understand the basics." And that's what all his educational efforts—the photographs, books, lectures and the newsletter—are about: to pass along the information that will preserve and protect as well as document. "The more people know, and the more they're encouraged to take pictures, the more they'll appreciate and want to preserve the land and the wildlife for everyone."

B. Moose Peterson has been an NPS member since 1984.