London Meerkats
I have been lucky enough to travel the world with my job and with my family and take photographs of wild animals in their natural habitat. However not everyone can afford to travel to these exotic places and take an organised safari or boat trip, so the next best thing is zoos and safari parks in the UK.
I'll be honest I don't like the concept of zoos but most now have conservation programmes that means their existence can now have a positive effect on the wild populations of endangered animals. London's Regents Park Zoo in one such establishment at the forefront of these various campaigns. We visited the zoo in 2007, which was also my first trip to London Zoo for 30 years, since my childhood. Things have changed for the better and all the enclosures have a natural feel. However at the end of the day I still have mixed feelings because however nice the enclosures are they are still cages for the public to go and see these magnificent creatures and I for one much prefer to see them in the wild.
One of the highlights of our trip was the visit to the Meerkat enclosure which was quite big and was home to a large troop of these inquisitive mammals. The low autumn sun provided some dramatic lighting through the trees and you could be forgiven thinking that these shots were taken in Africa and not London.
The golden rule for wildlife photography is to be honest about how the images were taken and never to try and pass off a captive animal as wild. There was a famous case a few years ago when the winner of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition was stripped of his title and prize when it was discovered that the 'wild' wolves in his winning shot were actually captive animals.
Perhaps one year I will get to Southern Africa to see and photograph meerkats in the wild but for now these captive animals provided me with a fantastic photographic opportunity that I took full advantage of.
By paying the entrance fee we were also helping fund the zoo's important conservation work, which took away some of the doubts I have about zoos as there just might be wild animals for me to photograph one day that wouldn't be there but for the London Zoo conservation efforts.
For more on London Zoo's conservation work visit - http://www.zsl.org/conservation/
All images taken on a Nikon D50 and a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 lens
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