Ecotourism is a fine line to tread especially as a photographer especially in this day and age where social media runs rampant.
The need to get those glory shots for likes tends to overlook the need to preserve the environment if the latest trend in popular travel influencers is anything to go by.
How do we as photographers go about getting that shot that doesn't come at a cost to a specie's survival?
This question plagues me every time we travel and go see any species of animal in their native habitat.
Our visit to the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary on the beautiful island of Bohol is a great example of how choices we make can affect a species' livelihood.
The Philippine Tarsier is a near threatened species of primate that calls the south eastern islands of the Philippine archipelago home.
The tarsier's very existence is threatened by habitat destruction, and the black market which sells these little creatures as pets. They also thrive extremely poorly in captivity - in fact they've been documented to commit suicide if under too much stress.
As you can see it's a very dangerous animal to see in person let alone capture with your camera.
Luckily the Philippine Tarsier and Wildlife Sanctuary on the beautiful island of Bohol provides us with the means to view these creatures in their natural habitat without causing them harm.
The Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary ensures that viewing the Tarsiers is limited to around 10-15 minutes (which is plenty of time), there are no cages, and you have a guide with you at all times to let you know if you're doing something wrong.
The founder of the sanctuary even has a species of Tarsier named after him - so they're obviously doing something right.
When it comes to photographing these beautiful wild animals let alone any wild animals it helps to use a telephoto lens. As I use a Fujifilm X series camera I used the XF 55-200 which is more than enough to capture these little critters at a far enough distance without them being startled by our presence.
It also was nice to know that at the end of the day the price of admission went to the conservation of this beautiful species.
The tarsiers were captured using the Fujifilm XT20 with the Fujifilm XF 55-200 telephoto lens.
