International Year of Biodiversity - 2010

The UN declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB). Throughout the year countless initiatives will be organized to disseminate information, promote the protection of biodiversity and encourage organizations, institutions, companies and individuals to take direct action to reduce the constant loss of biological diversity worldwide. UN Secretary-General, H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon delivers his video message for the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity on this link to YouTube.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is currently posting "Species of the Day". I will try to do my part to promote biodiversity in Norway by posting "Species of the Week" - yes I know my limits... The list will include threatened animals and plants listed in the national red list of Norway.

Starting of this new series I present the Northern Goshawk, Acipiter gentilis - habitat loss is still a great threat to this magnificent predator and it is therefor listed as Vulnarable.

NN Galleries

The Norwegian association for professional nature photographers (NN) has got a nice website with galleries and news (in Norwegian) concerning their 49 photographers. I have recently added a gallery to this site called "A black and white world", showing wildlife on black and white backgrounds. You can see the gallery on this link.

Another gallery has just been added with images from the cold spell that struck southern Norway this winter. Many stunning images have been added. Check out the gallery on this link.

Enjoy

BBC WPOTY winner disqualified

I feel nothing but disappointment when I tell you that the overall winning image of the 2009 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year - "Storybook wolf" - by José Luis Rodriguez, has been disqualified. After a thorough investigation the jury concludes that the wolf in the picture is a model animal and not taken in the wild.

This is probably the biggest blow to the community of professional nature photography in Europe ever.

Read the official statement on her,

and here is an Norwegian article on Fotopia.

What else is there to say...

Portraits of survival

I just came back from a weekend at Fotomessen 2010 - an amazing fair with thousands of visitors. My talks were all fully seated and more, and people seemed very happy with the show.

No I am back in the office trying to find some images, not previously published for the portrait article in the next issue of Natur&Foto. That is how I came across these freezing Reindeer from Spitsbergen. I took these images last year in March in freezing temperatures and strong wind. It was late in the evening and the light was very poor. The animals were really struggling to get through the ice in order to put their teeth into some frozen yellow grass. I started to export some files as B/W and the scene came out even better than before. I really like these animals, and it was a privilege to spend time with them. I hope we meet again soon.

Fotomessen 2010

It has been a couple of beautiful weeks with extremely cold weather. The highest waterfall in my county, Månafossen, at 92 meters is one solid piece of ice. I wish I could spend some more time taking pictures, but in a couple of hours I am heading to Oslo and the biggest photo fair in Norway, I believe?? I will be joining the Nikon NPS lounge and will also have a talk on the "Magic of Nature Photography" both Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I hope to see you there!

Read more about the fair and take a look at this amazing program her.

PS! All in Norwegian, but you are all welcome ;-)

Hunting the hunter

Wild Grey Wolf, Canis lupus, Finland

Yes I know I should not be calling out loud sitting in Norway, but I need an answer to this one question: Why do we need to kill wolfs like we now witness in Sweden? 12.000 hunters went out into the woods of Sweden on the first official day of legal wolf hunting in the country and killed as many as 22 animals. In total 27 wolfs will be shot. Living in Scandinavia we are blessed with a lot of unspoiled wilderness with plenty of room for wildlife to flourish. Or are we really? In Sweden they used to have 230 wolfs according to the officials - they want to have 210. In Norway we have only 20-30 animals at best. The official statement is that Norway shall not have more than 3 litters of young per year! Why? Conflict with farming interest... It seems Norway, and possibly Sweden, are run by farmers and hunters.

It is worth noting that Spain with their 46,7 million people (90 per. sq km) have wild Iberian Wolfs population of between 2000 and 2500 animals. Norway has 4,85 million people (12,5 per. sq km) and Sweden 9,3 million (20,6 per. sq km).

My wild Wolf image above is taken in Finland, September 2008.

...and a Happy New Year!

Full moon on New Years Eve in Stavanger, Norway. D3s, 500mm and 1,4x, 1/400sek @ f/11, ISO 2000

I am on my way out for the first photography of the year, hoping to test the D3S to the limit this weekend. 15th-17th of January I will be at Fotomessen in Lillestrøm with Nikon. There I will be having talks both Friday and Saturday on the large stage, as well as being in the NPS lounge (the aquarium) during the entire event. So I hope to see you there.

2010 will be the best year ever!