I still use Facebook groups, which I realize makes me extremely uncool. But I want to tell you about my favorite Facebook group. It’s full of boomers cracking lame jokes and it brings me joy every day. The group is called called Crap Wildlife Photography.
We’ve all seen roundups of beautiful wildlife photos. But have you seen a magpie photobomb a majestic mountain lion?
Photo by Savannah Rose
Have you stared into the lamp-lit eyes of a blurry mystery-critter in a stranger’s backyard?
Photo by Nancy Utz
Have you beheld a pair of flies getting it on against the backdrop of a stunning skyline?
Photo by Anna Zaigraeva
Crap Wildlife Photography has nearly half a million members and receives thousands of weekly submissions. Every day, my stressed-out news feed is delightfully interrupted by posts of blurry toads, pooping herons, and copulating turtles.
Photo by Jobina Dean Bessant
As good as the photos are the hilarious captions that come along with them. Bad puns, sarcastic praise of one’s own subpar photo, fury over the prominence of a window-screen in the foreground. One woman’s post was captioned “I saw an eagle today!” Her photo was a close-up of her own oblivious face, squinting into the sunlight to snap the picture without realizing her front-facing camera was on.
Comments and topics in this group are comfortably predictable. If an animal in a photo is peeking into your window, you must say that it’s here to talk to you about your car’s extended warranty. If someone’s post is not crappy enough, you comment, “Not crap! I’m calling the police!” If yet another photo shows a squirrel’s testicles in uncomfortably high definition, a dozen commenters post links to another oddly-specific Facebook group called “Please. Contain your troublepuffs, sir.”
Photo by Al Coe
Wildlife are unsophisticated, so Crap Wildlife Photography is a safe place to giggle at animals indulging their most base urges of pooping, peeing, and humping. Anything remotely sexual is guaranteed to be popular. The photo I submitted which got over 800 likes was an unremarkable shot of a huge beetle in my backyard—which decided to roost directly over my husband’s nipple. Commenters cracked easy jokes about it searching for milk.
People in all walks of life love trying to capture the uncapturable. Whether one is a suburbanite with an iPhone seeing a fox for the first time, or a professional photographer whose perfect shot of a raptor gets ruined by it plucking feathers out of its ass, we’re all equally at the mercy of wildlife that have no interest in our photos. Your fancy trail camera only captures an intimate view of deer genitals. Your expensive whale-watch tour yields only a photograph of waves with an inch of orca fluke.
Photo by Apayauq Reitan
Crap Wildlife Photography is a great equalizer. It’s also humbling: a reminder that the best-framed photos of mice and hens oft go out of focus. We are thwarted by terrible lighting, a slow shutter speed, or an elk that cares less about your travel memories than about licking its own butthole. I’ll never be a professional with a DSLR camera, but I sure can take a bad photo. And I sure can celebrate when someone else shares their own and I can comment with the group’s highest possible accolade: “Excellent crap!”
Cover photo by Mike Schultz
Laura graduated from Calvin in 2015 with a degree in art and writing. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her husband Josh and dog Rainy. She works as an IT support analyst and enjoys painting, rock climbing, and exploring the city.
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Crap Wildlife Photography is a site for sore eyes.
I’m in a Facebook group where people share pictures of their chonky cats — surprisingly therapeutic after my own not-so-chonky cat passed away in January. It brings me an inordinate amount of joy seeing contented, fat cats lounging in laps or showing off their floofy bellies (usually with a comment from their caregiver clarifying whether or not “the tummy is a trap”).
Think I might give this Crap Wildlife Photography group a try, too!
I am so sorry about your kitty but I am glad to hear you have found a place to give you joy and happy memories!