Do you guys shoot insects dead or alive?

Among other things.

It's no secret, that scientists can no longer do the da Vinci thing. You know, study on their own, invent everything they need. go where the facts lead The only scientists you will see today, were taught by the establishment, are paid by the establishment, and do the establishments work, in the direction the establishment whats them to go? And, as we have seen recently, lie about their findings to better themselves.

Would you call that science? How does this make them better than the rest of us unscientific people?

I would say then, that you missed the point again. People that are naturally violent and enjoy it, make the best soldiers. That is, if you believe that the whole point of fighting a war is to win it.

Wow. LOL I rest my case.

Time to cool the rhetoric and get back to the topic, shooting bugs.

dsvilko wrote in post #11883416
I don't want the appear overly cynical but I would say that the typical macro photographer enjoys thinking of himself as kind to insects. In reality the kindest thing you can do for the insects is to never set foot in anything that can even remotely be called nature. This would, of course, be completely opposite of how we who love the nature behave. I don't want anyone to feel bad and I am certainly not advocating walking only on pavement, I'm just trying to explore the morality of sacrificing insects for our hobby, when considered rationally and without hypocrisy. I want to have somewhere to link to if someone gets appalled that I froze a mosquito to photograph it. I also try 'rescuing' trapped insects in my house but on a rational level I understand that it's more about me feeling good about it because at the same time I also kill a lot of insects without giving it a second thought, as we all do (and it often could have been avoided).

Well first off, I agreed with Brian that typically macro photographers are kinder to insects than others. Does that mean we always go out of our way to save an insect trapped in our homes, or leave the wasp nests all over our house? Of course not. Even though we are "invading" insect habitats and homes to photograph them, it's not like most macro shooters are disrupting everything around the area.

Have you ever seen the drawer after drawer of bugs on pins in even small local museums? No, it's not the macro shooter that does the most harm. LOL In fact, the really good ones, especially those who get publeished, are probably one of the best forces for good for bugs than anything I can think of.

I don't make a deliberate decision when I go out to photograph bugs that I am going to kill some, but inadvertantly, I probably do kill a few (or many) of them accidentily. Killing an insect by freezing just to get a photo is morally wrong just as shooting an animal (with a gun) just for sport & leaving it to rot is morally wrong.

Miki G wrote in post #11887255
... Killing an insect by freezing just to get a photo is morally wrong just as shooting an animal (with a gun) just for sport & leaving it to rot is morally wrong.

I see different levels of moral “wrongness.” I don’t feel the same contempt for someone who kills a centipede in order to photograph it as I do someone who spears a manatee for fun or kills an elk and lets it rot. A lot has to do with the level of the life form… higher-order animals compared to lower-order, which admittedly is a somewhat subjective line.

Personally, I don’t kill bugs to photograph them. But I’m not gonna get my banana hammock in a twist over someone who does. They’re bugs, not horses, not dogs, not people.

If I spray the roaches or black-widows around my house, is it “morally better” than killing one for a shot?

LV Moose wrote in post #11887617
I see different levels of moral “wrongness.” I don’t feel the same contempt for someone who kills a centipede in order to photograph it as I do someone who spears a manatee for fun or kills an elk and lets it rot. A lot has to do with the level of the life form… higher-order animals compared to lower-order, which admittedly is a somewhat subjective line.

Personally, I don’t kill bugs to photograph them. But I’m not gonna get my banana hammock in a twist over someone who does. They’re bugs, not horses, not dogs, not people.

If I spray the roaches or black-widows around my house, is it “morally better” than killing one for a shot?

I understand that sometimes it is necessary to control animal/insect numbers in our daily lives, but there is a difference in pest control & in merely killing just for pleasure. I won't lose sleep over someone killing bugs for study / photography either, but just feel that it's a waste of life, if it could be studied / photographed without killing it.

@canonloader
Our discussion has gone so off-topic that it wouldn't be polite to continue it in this forum. Even though I usually stop a discussion if I smell a conspiracy theorist, I am willing to continue the argument through email. I can be reached on gmail with the same username.

Miki G wrote in post #11887255
I don't make a deliberate decision when I go out to photograph bugs that I am going to kill some, but inadvertantly, I probably do kill a few (or many) of them accidentily. Killing an insect by freezing just to get a photo is morally wrong just as shooting an animal (with a gun) just for sport & leaving it to rot is morally wrong.

This is something I must strongly disagree with. For me, there is a big difference between killing an animal (be it a mammal or an insect) simply for the fun of killing it and killing it as a necessary step of accomplishing some other goal. I will never understand the hunting for sport.
On the other hand, I see no difference in someone collecting and killing 100 insects that landed on his window, for the purpose of photographing them in a way that would not be possible with a live specimens and some other photographer deciding that killing 100 bugs under his feet is an acceptable loss for a fun day in nature shooting live insects in a way that would not be possible from his house. In both cases the net loss of insect life is the same (if this is something we at all care about) and in both cases the deaths could have easily been avoided - we are directly responsible and fully aware of that fact. The motivation is also the same - in both cases deaths are a direct consequence of us wanting to take some nice photos. The main difference is simply in the ease of acting all innocent - on the surface appearance of decency. It simply 'sounds better' if you say that you always shoot live insects without disturbing them. Basically what you are doing is giving the people around you the permission not to think about the necessary killing and they will love you for it (even though both you and they know the truth). On the other hand when you make the necessity of the killing explicit, their moral intuition will tell them that they have to be appalled. This is a good indication how often morality and ethics have nothing to do with the actual happiness and suffering of living thing but only with some 'intuitive' appearance of decency. A completely different emotional reaction to two situations that are in every important respect the same.

Exactly.

I think I am going to blame it all on old man winter who kills more bugs in one season than I have in my whole life.

canonloader wrote in post #11892177
I think I am going to blame it all on old man winter who kills more bugs in one season than I have in my whole life.

We had a nice, warmish weather the last two weeks (with a matching increase in insect activity) and yesterday morning everything was white again. I normally like the snow but after pondering these questions for a bit I must confess a bit of joy is gone. We simply live long enough and die seldom enough (in modern times) that we are simply not equipped at thinking about death on such massive scales.

In my family at least, we seem to be living about the same number of years. I'm only mid 60's now, but my grandparents and their parents all made it into the mid 80's. I feel like I can make it too. But, I am a boomer, born within months of the end of the war in Japan. So overall, my generation of Americans had it easy. But all 4 of my grandparents had a fair number of brothers and sisters, and kids of their own. Neither family though, raised more than 2 or 3 to adulthood. Diseases of the day mostly, took them off, and most of the men all went to war, so they had a very hard life, compared to mine. And the family secret is, all of the ones I had the good luck to know, were a bit wacky, but not violent. Just weird.

So yeah, you live long enough, things take on a different hue. Maybe they were not wacky, maybe I was just too inexperienced to see true maturity.

Interesting thread. I have no moral qualms about killing insects, but don't go out of my way to do so, and have not done so to photograph one. One large and important exception is that I am required by marital law to kill any and all stink bugs that periodically invade our house. Sadly, I have no interest in photographing those ugly little buggers.

I have never killed any insect just for the sake of being able to take a picture of it. I might move it to a location that would make it easier for me to photograph it but would never do anything to harm it.

ziggy25 wrote in post #12579664
I have never killed any insect just for the sake of being able to take a picture of it. I might move it to a location that would make it easier for me to photograph it but would never do anything to harm it.

Ditto