Timeline for Is it an offence to photograph a seahorse?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
25 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 23 at 9:25 | comment | added | FluidCode | I think that all the comments do not take into account the challenges of underwater photography. A clear signal is that the comment by@JanusBahsJacquet took many upvotes. There is no way to get a picture of a tiny seahorse from a distance. The result would always show a fuzzy undistinguishable subject. If you have a picture of a seahorse where the subject is clearly visible you must have taken it from a distance of less than two metres. | |
| May 22 at 17:57 | comment | added | Weather Vane | @TobySpeight it may not even be necessary to reveal the location: if I post a photo of a Throated Widget on my family Facebook page and they all know where I go every day to have seen it, and my nephew then harms it, that was my doing. | |
| May 22 at 17:55 | comment | added | Toby Speight | @WeatherVane, that's what I was thinking - the disturbance is the offence, and there's a risk that one could be accused of something akin to incitement if one said - or implied - "I've been looking at seahorses and you should too". | |
| May 22 at 17:52 | comment | added | Weather Vane | @TobySpeight as far as I know The Countryside Act doesn't explictly forbid revealing the location of a protected species, but if it attracts people who themselves cause a disturbance, or worse, it is feasible they could implicted. | |
| May 22 at 17:39 | comment | added | Toby Speight | It's quite possible that the BSAC advice to not share your (non-flash!) photos is at least partly to avoid accusations of inciting the criminal act of disturbance. I'm a caver, not a diver, and we have very similar advice regarding bats (of which all native species are protected IIRC): if you encounter any, don't photograph them and don't shine any light in their direction, then move away as soon as reasonably possible. | |
| May 22 at 0:14 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | So the conclusion here is then that it is neither the taking of the photo nor the uploading to social media that constitutes an offence, but the disturbance. Say I am sitting, motionless, on the sea bed taking pictures with my 800 mm lens and a large seahorse happens to swim through my field of lens-vision 30 m/100 ft away (so I’m an immobile 11-meter/36-foot giant 180 m/600 ft away). I click the shutter and stay where I am, the sea horse swims away undisturbed. Later, I scrub the GPS/EXIF data and upload the photo to social media (untagged). No offence will have been committed. | |
| May 21 at 23:42 | comment | added | Alexander The 1st | @WeatherVane: It does sound like that, to some extent - but that's why the BSAC says that the maximum to remain still and watch is five minutes. That is, without using a camera, to try and identify those details to remember for later. While the Seahorse Trust does have an option in their form to provide an image, it sounds like they advised the BSAC that photos are not necessary, and without a license, people should try to avoid doing longer than 5 minutes of watching. Possibly defined elsewhere as the timeframe for what counts as non-photographic "Intentionally or recklessly disturbs". | |
| May 21 at 23:31 | comment | added | Weather Vane | @AlexanderThe1st The Seahorse Trust does say "If you see Seahorses in the wild, please let us know, we need to know everything you can tell us about them such as size, distinguishing marks, species, the habitat it was found in, was it male or female, weather conditions and depth, in fact everything you can think of." That sounds like advice to study them. | |
| May 21 at 23:28 | comment | added | Alexander The 1st | @WeatherVane: Or to put it another way; the BSAC wants you to report the GPS location of the seahorse to the Seahorse Trust, but does not want you specifically studying the seahorse as they aren't granting you a license to do that. | |
| May 21 at 23:24 | comment | added | Alexander The 1st | @WeatherVane: Except upon re-reading it, it's the BSAC who want you to report it to the Seahorse Trust - and the BSAC who's specifically trying to get people to survey the seagrass. The BSAC Seagrass Survey specifically isn't giving you a license to study the seahorse, they're hedging on "If you see a seahorse accidentally while surveying the seagrass, it'd be preferred that you do not take a picture. If you do take a picture, don't take one with flash, and definitively don't post it online. Do let the Seahorse Trust know that you encountered one in that seabed with no photo." | |
| May 21 at 22:46 | comment | added | Weather Vane | @AlexanderThe1st The Seahorse Trust, however noble their aims, have no business advising people how to behave around seahorses, which as they boast, their efforts have made a protected species. If, as they advise, you record every detail of the seahorse you saw, then you are studying it, which needs a licence. | |
| May 21 at 22:30 | comment | added | Alexander The 1st | @WeatherVane: Given that, if you do spot a seahorse, they actually want you to report where it was found to the Seahorse Trust (Who presumably do have a license to photograph seahorses, but that's besides the point), it may not be about publicizing the location, and more about publicizing that you committed an offence. So the guideline reads almost as a "Don't record yourself committing crimes and post it for prosecutors to see." type of guidance. | |
| May 21 at 20:33 | comment | added | Weather Vane | @DonQuiKong even 100m away would be scary. | |
| May 21 at 20:30 | comment | added | ShadowRanger | @ShawnV.Wilson: I like that way of thinking of it. A very large seahorse might be 30 cm (~1 foot) long. A human is roughly six times that tall. If you're ten times their height away from them (three meters/10 feet), and six times their size, it's roughly equivalent to a human being 18 meters/60 feet away from a giant standing 11 meters/36 feet tall. I'd be pretty intimidated by that. For smaller seahorses, the distance might increase by a factor of 10, but then, so would the height. Still scared of the 360 ft giant even if they are a tenth of a mile away. :-) | |
| May 21 at 19:30 | comment | added | DonQuiKong | @ScottishTapWater I'm sure if I put an alligator/lion/bear a few meters away from you that doesn't count as disturbing you, right? Right?! | |
| May 21 at 19:24 | comment | added | Theodore | @ShawnV.Wilson Even if the seahorses don't feel threatened by a human's size, they are ambush predators of small crustaceans and need to eat constantly to survive. Human presence might scare off the prey species long enough to have an effect. | |
| May 21 at 17:42 | comment | added | Barmar | So the offense is being near them in the first place, not taking the photograph. The photograph is just evidence that they could use against you. | |
| May 21 at 17:38 | comment | added | Weather Vane | I think the point of being a protected species is so people don't say "but is it ok to invade their space just a little bit?" They are protected by law and you might be harming the last one in the region. Suppose they are more sensitive than you imagine, and you kill it. Would you expect the law to be sympathetic to you? | |
| May 21 at 17:35 | comment | added | Shawn V. Wilson | That's human-centered thinking. Remember how much bigger you are than a seahorse. Probably larger than whatever preys on seahorses. | |
| May 21 at 16:29 | vote | accept | ScottishTapWater | ||
| May 21 at 16:29 | comment | added | ScottishTapWater | I don't do photography when I'm diving, got no interest in it. I'm just wondering what the legal situation is because the statement took me by surprise. I'm also somewhat skeptical that being several metres away would qualify as disturbing them... | |
| May 21 at 11:28 | comment | added | Weather Vane | No, I would say you are not fine, because your very presence is disturbing the seahorse. Their mortality rate from being stressed is very high. The page you linked contains advice of what to do when you find one accidentally. Put the protected seahorse above your desire to take a photo. If you take a photo you are studying it, which you need a licence for. The remark about posting on social media may be due to it possibily being an offence to publicise the location of the protected species (although I can't find it in the Act). | |
| May 21 at 11:05 | comment | added | ScottishTapWater | So strictly speaking if you're taking a photo, without flash, from a reasonable distance, you're probably fine? | |
| May 21 at 9:37 | history | edited | Weather Vane | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 21 at 9:32 | history | answered | Weather Vane | CC BY-SA 4.0 |