ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
91 
graphic privilege in the Zoological Park was 
both desirable and necessary in the interest of 
the public at large. It was declared quite in¬ 
advisable to permit commercial photographers 
to come in and take photographs at will on the 
payment of a small fee, and print and sell quite 
without control. It seemed best that the sup¬ 
ply of photographs of the Zoological Park’s 
animals should be furnished by the Society’s 
own photographer, but that his results, one and 
all, should be made available to the public which 
desired to see them, at nominal prices, usually 
representing but little more than the cost of the 
prints themselves. 
Stated categorically, the reasons of the Zoo¬ 
logical Society for its strict regulation of the 
photographic privilege, as it was established in 
the beginning and has continued down to this 
date, are as follows: 
1. —The Society recognizes the very great 
value and importance of good animal photo¬ 
graphs in visual instruction. 
2. —The Society recognizes its duty to science 
and general education to make photographic rec¬ 
ords of all the important species of wild mam¬ 
mals, birds and reptiles that come into its pos¬ 
session, and make those results available to the 
public on a reasonable basis. 
3. —It is against the interests of the Society 
and the public to permit the production and dis¬ 
persal of inartistic and poorly executed photo¬ 
graphs of the animal collections. 
4. —It is against the interests of the Society 
to permit the photographing of animals shedding 
their winter coats, employees in their working 
clothes, attempts to capture escaped animals, 
sick or dead animals, or calamities of any kind. 
5. —In order to obtain the best possible re¬ 
sults in wild animal photography, satisfactory 
in quality and in quantity, it is absolutely ne¬ 
cessary to maintain a skilful photographer on 
the Zoological Park staff, with superior facili¬ 
ties, always ready for service and diligent in 
obtaining records of newly arrived animals. 
6. —It is to the public interest to extend the 
photographic privilege to animal illustrators, 
painters, sculptors, taxidermists, the staff pho¬ 
tographers of daily newspapers, and educators 
desirous of utilizing the animal models of the 
Park in ways which would be of interest and 
value to the public; but none of these persons 
can be permitted to enter the ranges, corrals, 
dens or cages of dangerous animals, as our staff 
photographer feels compelled to do. 
7. —It is impossible to permit commercial 
photographers to take photographs by the pay¬ 
ment of a fee without opening that privilege to 
every other owner of a camera who might choose 
to pay the fee, or without nullifying the So¬ 
ciety’s efforts. 
8. —It is the rule that representatives of the 
educational and scientific institutions of foreign 
countries shall receive special consideration in 
photographic privileges, and also practical as¬ 
sistance in obtaining good results. 
The above regulations represent the Society’s 
determinations of the methods necessary to 
secure from the photographic privilege the 
greatest amount of good for the greatest num¬ 
ber of people. They have insured the making 
and publishing of fine pictures of the Park and 
its animals and the suppression of poor pictures. 
In establishing the above regulations it has 
in no manner departed from the regulation of 
photographic privileges that obtain in all the 
great museums, art galleries and libraries of 
New York City and of the world at large. The 
Society maintains that its right to utilize its own 
animals in the Zoological Park for the greatest 
good of the greatest number is exactly the same 
as the control rights of the American Museum 
of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York 
Public Library and similar public institutions 
in the city of New York. It happens to be a 
fact, however, that a very few persons have de¬ 
manded privileges in the Zoological Park who 
would not dare to demand similar privileges in 
any of the museums or art galleries of this city, 
even though they too are founded and main¬ 
tained precisely on the same principles which 
operate for the existence of the Zoological Park. 
In pursuance of the Society’s regulations, and 
its expenditures and sacrifices, there has been 
created in the Zoological Park a collection of 
wild animal photographs of enormous extent and 
priceless zoological and artistic value. No such 
collection as this exists anywhere else in the 
world, because no other organization or insti¬ 
tution ever has put fortli an effort equal to that 
of the New York Zoological Society. The So¬ 
ciety’s negatives now number over 9,000, and 
they cover a wide range of subjects,—all in per¬ 
fect order, and safe from fire. The small pro¬ 
fits derived from the sale of animal photographs 
