{"id":12160,"date":"2023-11-28T13:48:25","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T13:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/28\/this-photographer-uncovers-hong-kongs-creatures-of-the-night\/"},"modified":"2023-11-28T13:48:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T13:48:25","slug":"this-photographer-uncovers-hong-kongs-creatures-of-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/28\/this-photographer-uncovers-hong-kongs-creatures-of-the-night\/","title":{"rendered":"This photographer uncovers Hong Kong\u2019s creatures of the night"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      A green pit viper coiled around a drainpipe, three blue-banded bees sleeping on a grass blade, and a gecko climbing a tree against the backdrop of a bustling city. They\u2019re all part of Hong Kong-British wildlife photographer Lawrence Hylton\u2019s extensive portfolio.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Despite being one of the most densely populated places in the world, Hong Kong is a diverse home to over 1,000 animal species, and boasts one third of all bird species in China. Many of these creatures only emerge at night, but that doesn\u2019t stop 30-year-old Hylton from seeking them out.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Embarking on nocturnal safaris multiple times a week, Hylton says his mission is to promote conservation through his artistic approach to nature photography.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      \u201cI\u2019m hoping people view [my photographs] as an opportunity to understand that nature isn\u2019t as scary as we might deem them to be,\u201d he said. \u201cThe key is to show that animals have a right to live here. Just because we fear them doesn\u2019t mean that they don\u2019t deserve to live.\u201d  <\/p>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline gallery--hidden\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__main\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__container\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__slides\">                                                                                                                                <\/div>\n<p>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__prev-overlay\"><\/button>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__next-overlay\"><\/button>      <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h5 class=\"gallery-inline__headline\">The photographer uncovering Hong Kong\u2019s nocturnal wildlife<\/h5>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__counter\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__controls\">        <button class=\"gallery-inline__prev\">          Prev                  <\/button>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__next\">          Next                  <\/button>      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Reptiles and amphibians are among Hylton\u2019s favorite animals to look for \u2013 particularly snakes, because of how misunderstood they are. Despite being important predators and ecological indicators, he says many snakes face persecution.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      For Hylton, finding wildlife is the easiest part, but photographing them takes a lot of patience. \u201cYou\u2019re working with a subject that doesn\u2019t want to be disturbed, so it\u2019s important to try and respect wildlife where we can,\u201d he says. \u201cThe best thing we can do if we\u2019re documenting is to capture what we need to capture and leave it be.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Hylton started wildlife photography when he got his first camera at the age of 17, capturing \u201cthe odd bird dancing on the branch here and the cute ladybird trampling around on a leaf there,\u201d but it wasn\u2019t until he moved from the UK to Hong Kong and photographed a peregrine falcon swooping past that it became a passion.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      In terms of nocturnal wildlife, apart from \u201cblood-thirsty insects\u201d and some feral dogs, Hong Kong is relatively safe to\u00a0explore in the dark. With no\u00a0large predators willing to harm humans, Hylton says all someone needs to get started as a night-time wildlife spotter is a torch, some common sense and to be mindful of the subjects they encounter.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Bosco Chan, director of conservation at WWF Hong Kong, says one reason why wildlife can survive and thrive in Hong Kong is that around 40% of its land is designated as<strong> <\/strong>\u201ccountry parks,\u201d one of the highest ratios of protected area in the world. Coupled with the city\u2019s hilly terrain, animals can avoid human disturbances and hunting pressure.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      But despite being home to hundreds of species, biodiversity loss is also a problem in Hong Kong. \u201cA century or two ago, we had tigers, a leopard, and a civet called the large Indian civet, which was last found in the 1940s,\u201d says Chan. \u201cIn recent years, we have lost a lowland frog species called the floating frog. It thrives in paddy fields but as we abandon rice farming, the frog is gone in Hong Kong.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      While organizations like the WWF are helping to conserve endangered populations such as the Eurasian otter, which according to Chan is \u201cone of the last remaining kinds of urban otters in China,\u201d Hylton thinks more can be done for Hong Kong\u2019s natural habitats through education.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      \u201cWe have lots of [hikers] who visit this area and fear snakes and fear the unknown. [It] makes people do silly things,\u201d Hylton says. \u201cHopefully someday in the future, everyone can just enjoy nature as they came out to do.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n<div>This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A green pit viper coiled around a drainpipe, three blue-banded bees sleeping on a grass blade, and a gecko climbing a tree against the backdrop of a bustling city. They\u2019re all part of Hong Kong-British wildlife photographer Lawrence Hylton\u2019s extensive portfolio. Despite being one of the most densely populated places in the world, Hong Kong <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}