Miles Collins

Claims that the 2009 BBC wildlife photographer of the year has conned the judges, are the allegations true?

Allegations have come to light that the winner of the BBC 2009 Wildlife Photographer of the Year winner, Jose Luis Rodriguez used a tame wolf in order to photograph his winning shot of an Iberian wolf jumping over a fence in northern Spain. Rosamund Kidman Cox, a nature journalist and one of the competition’s judges has admitted to Nature of Finland magazine that the entry is being investigated as a suspected fraud.

The photographer entered the competition with a photograph and a story depicting a wild wolf and its feeding habits when, according to reports the wolf is tame and lives in captivity thus breaching the competitions rules of not declaring it to be tame. The competition makes it quite clear that animals photographed in the wild will be viewed upon more favourably than those in captivity. Spanish photographers have come forward with photographs of an animal bearing a striking resemblance to this particular wolf including shots of where the captive wolf is held and the similarities in the surroundings. The photographs of the zoological park in Madrid show very similar trees, paths and skylines to the photograph whilst one leading expert on the behaviour of wolves questioned why the wolf would have jumped the gate when it would almost certainly have passed through the gaps in the gate under normal circumstances.

This is, as far as I can see still under investigation so unless a firm piece of evidence can be brought forward then the photographer will keep his award. What is interesting is that when I wrote my last post I considered using this photograph as an example of photographs taken using a trigger mechanism when the photographer is, as in this case in bed at the time. There was some debate at the time as to wether the photographer should be in situ or not for them to receive any merit for their work. A good point for argument but in the case of the famous snow leopard shot I sometimes feel there is little choice if we are to have any chance of photographing a very rare species without disturbing them.