Incredible Moment with a Mother Puma and Cub! The Reality of Puma Photography in Patagonia

welcome back to Tores Del Pine National Park in Chile this is our third day searching for magnificent Pumas at the end of this video I'm going to talk more about my experience photograph Pumas and why it wasn't quite how I expected after yesterday's disappointment of not seeing any Pumas Miguel our guide had spotted a female pummer and got us in position the early morning light was beautiful [Music] she walked along a pond and walked away into the hills just moments later we rushed about 100 m to find another beautiful Puma [Music] the Golden Light highlighted her silhouette and the Shadows cast a blue tone [Music] so after yesterday's disappointment of not really seeing any Pumas it was so nice to see two already this morning and the first one was in such nice light it crossed the road right in front of us and I'm amazed at how relaxed the Pumas are they don't care about people at [Music] all we caught up with the Puma on the other side of the Hill when the Pumas are moving it's quite easy to spot them but when they're sleeping they easily blend into the landscape so during the day it can be very difficult to find Pumas but there's plenty of other wildlife in the national park we didn't see any more Pumas that day at the end of this video I'm going to talk about my experience in Patagonia photographing Pumas because it didn't go quite how I expected and I'd realized what I'd seen online was quite different amazing clouds blew in around the snowcapped Peaks yeah after a quiet morning Puma wise I focused on the guacos [Music] so we've just come back from our morning session and we've now had seven out of 10 sessions looking for Pumas and so far only two out of seven sessions have actually resulted in photos so I'm a little bit disappointed I was given the impression that we'd have more opportunities for photos I really do hope the last three sessions are good but we'll have to see of course this can be quite normal in Wildlife photography but perseverance always rewards just 20 minutes after I recorded that Vlog Miguel called us about a male juvenal who was resting in a hotel Gardens the Puma was sleeping just 15 M from a hiking path so he often looked up at the groups of people walking but he was very [Music] relaxed we waited quietly for a couple of hours but then suddenly the Puma became alert someone was coming his [Music] mother the family relaxed together mostly unbothered by people but still alert [Music] they started to walk parallel to the path and we were able to walk with them [Music] the Mayo Cub was already bigger than his mother and he followed her closely they were in no rush walking slowly together [Music] [Music] [Music] we just had an absolutely amazing experience with a male cub pummer and his mom we were watching the Cub for a few hours he was super relaxed just sleeping and there was a big crowd we decided to just wait see what would happen and we followed both of them and sometimes in Wildlife photography you literally just need 5 minutes of an exceptionally beautiful encounter and you get you know the photos of a lifetime and that's sort of what it felt like and just as they were leaving it started raining and yeah just so so [Music] good thanks to you watching my videos and sponsors like Squarespace I can go on trips like this with Squarespace you have Endless Options to Showcase your creativity create a blog about a trip set up a photo gallery to display your work something I also really want to explore is digital products there's many inspirational templates to help you get started if you'd like to give Squarespace a go go head to squarespace.com danany Conor wild and you can save 10% of the new purchase of a website or a domain our final day and a male Puma was spotted after marking his territory he started to walk along the pond and we [Music] followed Miguel had taught us never to run but to walk walk calmly and the Pumas will stay [Music] relaxed I followed almost parallel keeping the Puma ahead of me he walked away and We unexpectedly bumped into an armadillo [Music] although this was our last day Puma Trucking ju and I still had 6 days to explore Patagonia in our camper [Music] van I hope you've enjoyed these past two videos about photographing Pumas in Patagonia it was an incredible experience to walk with big cats and it was actually my first time photographing big cats and it was amazing to feel their power and their presence but I was actually a bit disappointed with photographing Pumas in Patagonia and when I searched online there's not actually much information about people's experience so I thought I'd tell you you about what I learned and how it works so I spent 5 days with Miguel a puma guide and he was our private guide for just ju and I and I just want to say that Miguel was amazing he was always working so hard to get us in the best position to photograph the Pumas and he works with different people within the park that helped us get in certain locations so Miguel was great so the reason I wanted to go to Patagonia is because Tores Del P the National Park is only a few hours away where I needed to be for Antarctica so most people who go to Antarctica also go to Tores Del P because it's pretty accessible you can do it within a few days and it's just an add-on to your trip so initially I did some research and I also asked friends who I knew had been to Patagonia and I was asking about their experience where they went how they they did it and I discovered that there are two options the first option is this private estate which is not actually in the National Park it's right next to it the Pumas are very habituated they're very easy to find and there's not much tracking involved you sort of just walk and they're there most photos taken in Patagonia and anything you've seen on TV has been filmed or photographed at this location however multiple people told me that they shoot guacos and literally put them in the perfect position with a mountain backdrop and it's extremely staged and the photographers just need to walk to where they've positioned this guanako and the Pumas come and eat and they're in that area and I wanted to avoid that I'm not sure if this still happens or it used to happen happen in the past or maybe they did it for some TV companies just to get certain shots I'm not sure the other reason I didn't want to go there is because for 5 days I was quoted $88,000 for one person so the other route which is what I did is hire a private guide within the national park I was actually recommended Miguel from my friend laara Jackson and she told me that Miguel is very ethical and a great guide so we would drive around look out with binoculars and try to look for Pumas and there were some days where we didn't have any sightings but then some days we had absolutely incredible encounters which made the trip overall a success I visited in late Autumn but I've been told winter is the best time because it's cold and so the Pumas are moving more and they're looking for guanacos but during the day when we went the Pumas were often just sleeping during the day and trying to look for a still or sleeping Puma is very difficult if they're moving then it's much easier to spot the pumers but in the middle of the day we only really saw one pummer who was eating a guaco and we knew where he had dragged the guanako that's how we could find him all our other sightings were at Sunrise or the late afternoon since the National Park is open to anyone and you just pay a daily fee or a weekly fee you could do what we did without a guide but truthfully we stayed in Patagonia for an extra six maybe seven days and we didn't see one Puma so Miguel's skills and ability to communicate with other trackers and guides definitely helped us to get our sightings of pumas maybe if we tried really hard and woke up at sunrise every day we may have been able to find Pumas on our own but I think Miguel was kind of crucial now let me go into the disadvantages of photographing Pumas in the National Park firstly you have to stay on the road which obviously is a good thing in terms of limiting disturbance to Wildlife but in certain situations we probably could have got off the road and gone closer to Pumas in a ethical way that doesn't disturb them however because of this rule we had to stay on the road which just limits the distance that we can get close to the Pumas the Pumas generally don't care about human Presence at all they will often walk right in front of cars and right in front of people and they are very relaxed secondly being in the National Park which is open to anyone a humor usually causes a big crowd the first day we were very lucky to be in the presence of this gorgeous female and we were just with her and a few other people but there were two encounters where there were probably like 30 to 40 people with us and it didn't feel that nice to be in a big crowd with one Puma I specifically wanted to avoid this and I thought hiring a private guide would reduce being in big crowds the last encounter that we had with auma which was that massive male was really really awkward over the course of the days Miguel had taught us how to safely watch Pumas and how to do it in a way that limits any disturbance so the major thing was that we couldn't run we could walk quickly and to not walk ahead of a puma if we're walking like parallel so let them walk ahead of us but anyway the last encounter there were two bus loads of people probably around 7 or eight Vehicles parked on the road and we were waiting for this Puma to wake up and as soon as he woke up people just started to talk very loudly and get very excited and the Puma started to walk parallel to the road and between us and the Puma Was A Very Long Pond or Lagoon and I was with the other photographers because Miguel has another guide that he works with and so the four of us or five of us were walking slowly doing everything that we had been told the previous days and suddenly the rules had changed it just started started to get a bit weird because the guides basically started to have an argument and I think if there was just better communication between the guides then this wouldn't have happened and one of the major issues is that the national park doesn't acknowledge the guides as guides basically so there's no rules set by the national park as to how the guides should behave or how to limit large groups so I don't necessarily think this is a problem with the guides I think it's more about the national park and they haven't worked out a way to have set rules about how the guides should manage their groups lastly it still cost a lot each day cost $500 and that was just for guiding less than 12 days in Patagonia overall cost us $8,000 we didn't stay in any fancy hotels we cooked our own food and sadly I'm not going to make my money back with the content from this trip and obviously this is my job this is my income so you know it's not ideal I personally would have gone somewhere else for that money so generally I was a bit disappointed I also didn't feel feel that I had the space or the opportunity to properly connect and really appreciate the pumers because encounters were often very rushed and there was always something weird going on in terms of conflict with a guide or we're on private land and the manager of the hotel doesn't want us to cause a crowd and it's just a bit you know awkward I also want to add that I do believe we went at the peak of the season a lot of the tourists who were there had just gone to Antarctica or were about to go to Antarctica and added Patagonia as a extra trip that's even what I did and I think if you went during winter which is actually probably a better time for Pumas and photog it's probably a lot quieter and a lot of the issues that we had probably wouldn't even exist in Winter anyway that was my experience and I wanted to share my honest thoughts especially if any other photographers are interested in going once again Miguel worked really hard to get us in the best position and if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have been able to get these kind of encounters on our own would I go again maybe maybe in winter but I wouldn't want to experience those crowds again I do have another Patagonia video coming out in a few weeks or maybe a few months about photographing Wildlife from our camper van and we find some more Penguins we trial van life for the first time but first i'm going to share some Sweden content thank you for watching thank you to my incredible patrons who support my work and I'll probably see you next week week

Channel: Dani Connor Wild

Views: 12,981

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Id: wZXvm6jD1S0

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 20 2024