Media Award Finalists - 2022
2022 Awardees
This year brought some incredible conservation media entries! A continuing theme we saw was how the pandemic impeded media projects for some, while opening new doors for others.
Here are the categories:
Film / Video
Audio / Written
Category: Film / Video
1st Place:
Community for the Wild
TELUS CREATIVE
“Community for the Wild” is a short documentary that follows a community of researchers and volunteers in British Columbia who are working on the largest collaborative mule deer research project in BC's history - the Southern Interior Mule Deer Project. This research project has brought them together across vast landscapes guided by their common love of wildlife to support habitat conservation and wildlife management to try and assess why mule deer numbers are in steep decline and ultimately to come up with management recommendations to help improve their numbers. The film combines socio-political, cultural, ethical, and traditional perspectives while exposing some pressing issues that face the habitat and wildlife we as Canadians love so much. Ultimately, it is a story about a community working to build a better BC, to protect and preserve British Columbia's wildlife and wild places.
The research project is a collaboration between the BC Wildlife Federation, Okanagan Nation Alliance, Bonaparte Indian Band, University of British Columbia, University of Idaho, British Columbia Fish and Wildlife Branch (FLNRORD) and literally hundreds of volunteers and funders, including individuals, fish and game clubs, and organizations such as the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, and the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. To embody the value of "community" and the sheer dedication of volunteers, the producer and director created this project on their own time, giving their own time to help bring this story to life as well.
2ND Place:
TRANSMISSION
This is an emotive documentary that was created to be used as an outreach tool to the farming community. One of the big goals with this film is to educate someone who knows nothing about M. ovi and the risk it imposes on domestic and wild sheep.
3RD Place:
HUNTERS OF COLOR NY PROGRAM
BY: HUNTERS OF COLOR & TOMMY COREY
In 2016, the US Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a demographics study of hunters in the United States and found that 97% of all licensed hunters identify as white. We at Hunters of Color, a 501c3 non-profit, aim to change that statistic to bring more diversity to conservation through hunting.
Hunters of Color reconnects those who have been detached from their ancestral hunting heritage and food paths by providing mentoring opportunities in equitable, safe environments.
For this event, Hunters of Color teamed up with The Nature Conservancy, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and National Deer Association to host eight new hunters on a multi-day crossbow deer hunt in upstate New York. Check it out! The Outdoors are for Everyone.
Film/Photo HONORABLE MENTIONS:
THE SNAKE RIVER CORRIDOR PROJECT
BY: JACKSON HOLE WILDLIFE FOUNDATION
TEAM BIGHORN
BY: SILVERLINE FILMS
HOME FOR THE WILD - THE JOURNEY OF VAIL'S BIGHORN SHEEP
BY: TOWN OF VAIL, COLORADO
KENTUCKY ELK EXPANSION
BY: RMEF FILMS
Category: Audio / Written
1ST PLACE:
“MEET THE OCEAN PODCAST”
BY: MEET THE OCEAN
Meet the Ocean is a creative conservation nonprofit creating podcasts, films and interactive outreach campaigns that focus on educating the public on the polar regions in new and dynamic ways.
2ND PLACE:
THE SCALES IN CONSERVATION
BY: KUDU MEYER
This is a photo of a pangolin pup, feeling inquisitive and confident behind its mother's armoured tail. His mother, Ally, was recovered from the illegal wildlife trade back in 2020 and during her health assessment by specialist veterinarians, it was confirmed that she was pregnant.
As part of the research, data is collected during post-release monitoring, but we try and keep our interference and presence to a minimum, especially with a case like this!
In August 2020 a trail camera caught Ally exiting her burrow together with a tiny pup riding on her tail; this was the first documented case of a pregnant pangolin, recovered from the trade, to successfully give birth after release. It was exciting, but we had to control our urges to go and attempt to see this pup with our own eyes. The last thing we wanted to do now, was place any stress on Ally and this little miracle.
A few months after this photo was taken the pup left Ally to start its own adventure, and since then Ally has been observed “interacting” with male pangolins in the field. Ally gave birth to a second pup in 2021 which also grew up healthy and strong. On 19 May 2022, we removed all monitoring tags from Ally, closing our research books with her. Her release is a fantastic success story and she has taught us much about pangolin behaviour in the two years we worked with her.”
3RD PLACE:
“GAMEKEEPERS PODCAST”
BY: MOSSY OAK GAMEKEEPERS
Mossy Oak Gamekeepers is as important to the average land user as the public land owner mentality has been to the public land user.
Being a gamekeeper is all about caring for your piece of land and the resources it provides, and the podcast and quarterly magazine helps foster this mentality and lifestyle that leaves it better than its found. It exists to empower the average hunter to care for the minutia of their local ecosystem whether through traditional practices of better understanding food plots or the more complex interactions of fire and wildflowers or the insects at the bottom of the food chain that benefit the animals we hunt.
Gamekeepers gives a platform to some of the country's leading wildlife biologists who equip hunters with knowledge previously inaccessible. The podcast develops a community that exists 12 months of the year - a deep connection to the land that we all feel but is more easily manifested through the insights gained and actions motivated through the weekly episodes of the Gamekeeper Podcast and quarterly issues of Gamekeeper Magazine: the Journal for Wildlife Stewardship.
HONORABLE MENTION
ARCHAEOLOGY EXPLAINED: CAN I PICK UP THAT ARROWHEAD?
BY: LIZ LYNCH
“This piece represents a nearly yearlong labor of love on behalf of two of the things I care about most: my work as an archaeologist, and hunting. Both of these things are, for me, inextricably intertwined with conservation, namely conservation at a multigenerational and landscape scale. As an archaeologist who works on federal lands, I have a responsibility to educate the public about the resources I look for, study, and protect. It's literally written into the laws and regulations that guide how I do my job. As a hunter, sadly, I know fellow hunters are among the worst repeat offenders, in terms of folks who are in the habit of removing cultural resources – which are inherently non-renewable and finite resources – from public lands. In some places, “arrowhead/pot hunting” is so widely done and so deeply socially engrained, it’s difficult to get folks to understand that it is and always has been a harmful practice.”