Photographer's Tour of Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Washington

I've just returned from an incredible weekend (and organized photo tour) to Northwest Trek. As a wildlife photographer, I always try to get pictures of animals in their natural habitat (and organize all of my vacations around doing just that). With this in mind, I rarely visit wildlife parks.

When I heard about Northwest Trek - a wildlife park where the majority of animals were rescued and weren't able to be released into the wild - I thought it was too good to be true. It's touted as a "cageless" environment for the majority of animals.

Well... the place definitely lived up to the hype.

All of their grazing animals are indeed virually cageless. They have acres upon acres to roam around and you have to take a tram run by the park in order to see them. This limits the contact these animals have with humans and it also means the animals are playing around in their own environments.

The caged animals were still, unfortunately, caged - although there are fenceless areas where you can point your camera inside. The enclosures were about average; however, I always feel any animal (especially large cats like lynx or cougar) deserves as much room as possible to move around. There are areas inside each enclosure where the cats could fortunately hide from the tourists. The one consolation is that these were rescued animals who wouldn't have a life without a facility like this.

The thing I liked about Northwest Trek was their obvious concern for the conservation of wildlife in this region of the world. They only take in animals from the Pacific Northwest, so you don't get non-indigenous animals like lions or tropical birds and monkeys having to live in a climate that isn't appropriate.

They also have a dedicated base of volunteers who genuinely love the animals they work with. I spoke to several on my trip and they could talk for hours about the individual personalities of each animal there. Many seemed to be long-term volunteer staff, which speaks volumes about the place.

The organized photo tour was particularly good if you're keen on wildlife photography. The best part is that the guides will simply stay in each area for as long as the photographers' want (again, you can't leave the bus, which is good for the animals' sake) and they didn't mind backing up and moving to different sections of the roaming area depending on the activity of the animals. The tour takes 15 photographers and costs about $40 US. The regular tram just goes through the park on a set schedule for close to an hour whereas the photographers' tour was three hours. It also started before the park opened, so we had a chance to enjoy early morning shooting (which is ideal and is often the time of day when animals are at their most active). The cageless environments meant I could grab photos of animals looking virtually as they would if they were in Yellowstone or the Rockies.

What to Bring?
Definitely bring your longest telephoto lenses. I had my 600mm f4 with me and it proved invaluable. I also used my 300mm f4 and rarely used my smaller telephotos simply because the animals were still a considerable distance from the camera (and rightly so). You'll want to make sure you have a sturdy tripod and a polarizer or neutral density filter if it's a bright day so you can reduce the light coming into your camera (if it's not a bright day then don't worry about the filters). Bright days aren't as common as rainy days in the Pacific Northwest so be sure to bring rain gear, including an umbrella. You can actually purchase an umbrella stand for your tripod and it proves invaluable during any photography in the rain.

You can find more images from my trip to Northwest Trek by clicking here