“Life is seen through many prisms in Christopher Marley’s Biophilia…”It’s all part of a marvelous display, one that silences any notion that the natural vessel is worthless after death.”

—Audubon

“In his art, (Marley) reclaims each animal’s physical body, then its spirit”

— NY Times

“Where do all of the creatures come from?” 

is a question asked by many who are new to my work. Concerns about conservation, balancing the needs of humanity and non-human organisms, and the significance of all life are central to my mission, so it is important to me that my decades-old processes are understood :

RECLAMATION
All of the vertebrates I use are reclaimed. This means that they were not killed for art, but died of natural or incidental causes. As all living things eventually pass, my objective has been to honor the uniqueness and the beauty of bodies that were once animated by presenting them in a new light.. The organisms I work with come from the following sources:: 

Captive-bred or raised animals. When organisms die in the care of the institutions or individuals dedicated to their husbandry, it creates an innate quandary - what to do with the body? I discovered decades ago that most such institutions and individuals don’t have a ready answer (apart from performing a necropsy to understand the cause of death.) Consequently, freezers in the back rooms of museums, zoos, universities,  importers, aquariums, and breeding facilities tend to house such specimens indefinitely. This is the primary source of most of the birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians, and other vertebrates I work with.

Bycatch. About 15% of all animal protein consumed worldwide comes from the ocean. An unfortunate side effect of oceanic fishing, especially trawling, is bycatch. These are non-food organisms that are unintentionally killed in fishing nets. Most oceanic bycatch is simply discarded, but I have worked with individuals and organizations around the world to set aside a tiny fraction of such deceased specimens. These must be shipped frozen to my studio where I can begin the process of preserving them to last indefinitely. It is a laborious and expensive process that does not always produce worthwhile fruits, but on occasion has resulted in incredible and serendipitous successes. Some for the first time recorded. 

Seafood Markets. I am fond of seafood markets in foreign countries, and have at times been surprised to stumble upon organisms that I could not identify. Though getting them back to my Oregon studio can be fraught, it has proven worthwhile at times. Occasionally, even domestic markets offer surprises, like thresher sharks or urchin (uni) in a fresh seafood market in San Diego, or octopus (Tako nigiri) at Uwajimaya.

Quarantine Facilities. These house captive specimens (mainly birds) for a wholly different reason. Their objective  is not necessarily to keep the animals alive, but to flesh out diseases that could be transferred to endemic or domestic species. Though the legal importation of wild-caught Psittaciformes is now very rare in the United States, there are still occasional importations, chiefly of invasive Psittacula species, as well as transfers from European, Canadian, and Asian bird breeders into the US in order to expand bloodline diversity for the health of US captive bred bird populations. However, in order to ensure that no new diseases are introduced into the US, all such imports require a 30-day quarantine in which the birds are sealed into a minimalist aviary with food and water, with the expectation that any diseased or otherwise unhealthy birds will succumb in that time. It is a harsh, and in my experience, unnecessarily severe process that more often than not ensures the demise of weakened birds that are less-often diseased than they are simply stressed. As such, there are almost always fatalities. 

Research Facilities. A less common source for specimens is research facilities. These can be affiliated with both universities and industries and are usually concerned less with keeping organisms alive than with understanding their systems and the effects of human activity on the individual health or population of a particular species, class, or order.  I don't often receive usable specimens from such institutions because they tend to dissect individuals beyond use, but I have received some usable excess animals in the past. 

Roadkill. An occasional source is roadkill. This is exclusively composed of  reptiles that are supplied by herpetologists who come upon freshly killed specimens while on night surveys. As one might imagine, such specimens usually require more reconstruction throughout my preservation processes, but I have been successful in several instances. 

Insect Collecting

Most of the insects I work with are wild-caught by indigenous catchers. 

Insect conservation and ecology differs radically from that of vertebrate ecology. With few exceptions, insects are the bottom of the food chain. As such, the main defence of nearly all insect species lies in its ability to reproduce prolifically. In most healthy ecosystems, insects feed numberless other organisms, either directly or indirectly. Consequently, humans catching them has not been shown to have any measurable impact on their populations. (Imagining the weight of countless birds, amphibians, reptiles, bats, rodents, primates,  etc. on insect populations vs. a few far less effective humans running round the jungle with butterfly nets gives an effective illustration). Habitat contamination, or development however, is a different story. 

For terrestrial invertebrate populations, the contamination or development of habitat, and host plant decimation pose the major human threats. If an insect species cannot reproduce, populations can decline precipitously very quickly. The challenge in the areas of threatened habitats is to balance the needs of local people with the non-human organisms that depend on the same environment for survival.  Insect collecting offers native people an economic incentive to preserve local habitats by helping them to make their living through the collection of a renewable, sustainable forest resource. 

Responsible insect collecting offers an alternative to ranching, farming, or logging for often impoverished people with few options for sustenance other than working the land.  When people are able to make their living by collecting a renewable resource from a healthy forest, the pressure to develop that land is reversed and those who might have been forced into industries that are destructive to habitat become champions of its preservation. 

“The biggest threat to scarabs is not insect hobbyists but loss of habitat as tropical forests are converted into farms.  We believe that regulated beetle collecting by local people— and in time beetle farming—could actually help slow this process.  It has been successful elsewhere with butterflies and other insects.” 

—Ronald Cave
National Geographic Magazine

Other Invertebrates

My sources for oceanic invertebrates like crabs, brittlestars, cephalopods, and urchins varies widely. Most are bycatch, some are recovered seafood, some are beachcombing finds, and some, (especially urchins) are harvested. All are legally acquired and none are endangered or protected species. 

NOTES ON CONSERVATION

I have been licensed by US Fish and Wildlife for the past 25 years. In that time I have been honored to partner with, present to, be positively reviewed by, and/or have my work licensed by many of the most recognizable news and conservation organizations in the world such as Audubon, World Wildlife Fund, Smithsonian.com, Science News, the FAO of the United Nations, National Geographic Explorer, Scientific American, The Los Angeles Times, the Times UK, the New York Times, NPR, CBS Sunday Morning, and a host of others. In that time and through those associations, I have acquired some important  insights that are relevant to not only the survival, but the thriving of both our planet and the humans that call it home. 

First, too often conservation and the health of the natural world is seen as antithetical to the progress of humanity. The apparent conflict between human and non-human needs is often reduced to an “us vs them” equation. I believe this simple reduction is a fallacy. When human ingenuity is applied, incredible progress can be and often has been made in the way that we interact with the rest of nature. When that application is incentivized, not necessarily monetarily, (though that can also be effective), progress accelerates. One might ask, “but what incentive is more powerful than money for doing the hard work of applying human ingenuity to conservation?” One comes readily to mind. Love. 

When we fall in love with elements of nature, be that an environment, an organism, an activity wherein we engage with her, or some other method of connecting, we almost effortlessly develop the will to dedicate the mental, emotional, financial, and societal energy required to make real, systematic change. A mother who loves her child, a man who loves his wife, a teacher who loves her students, does not need to be convinced or coerced to work diligently for the good of their beloved.

That is the first, basic though important, lesson I have learned. Inspire through love and the work, sacrifice, and motivation needed to be good stewards comes naturally.   

But what then? How can we agree on the correct balance between the needs of humanity and non-human life? This is a more complicated and nuanced question than can be adequately explored here, but I’ll offer one critical part of the answer: locals are more important and more effective than bureaucracies.  

CITES vs IUCN. As an illustration of this principle, I’ll point to CITES (The Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species) and the IUCN (The International Union for Conservation of Nature). 

CITES is a worldwide international treaty that affects the trade of almost every country. All signatory countries must abide by its assessments of the relative health of the nearly 41,000 plant and animal species that it lists. Plants and animals listed are given one of three designations; I, II, or III.  CITES III species are monitored, CITES II species require special international permits in order to move from one nation to another, and CITES I species may not be trafficked for any reason. It is a huge governing body with real enforcement power and far-reaching effects on both industries and individuals, but, like most bureaucracies, is much more political than scientific. At each CITES convention, special interest groups, industries, governments, NGOs, and  others lobby for species to be included or excluded for any number of reasons. To scientists as well as locals and field experts, their declarations are often baffling. 

In contrast, the older and more scientifically-based IUCN has less law enforcement power (though it does join in the lobbying of CITES) but is deep in its association with thousands of scientific and non-scientific organisations around the world to establish the most accurate assessment of plants and animal species’ health and populations on the planet, the IUCN Red List. While it is not without its ambitions for increased political power, the IUCN’s closer connection to local scientists (both accredited and citizen) give its assessments a nimbleness and weight of accuracy that CITES often lacks. A few examples: 

CITES assigns the scarlet macaw a designation of “I” - the highest level of protection afforded to any species. The IUCN lists this same species in its hierarchical levels as “Least Concern” or lowest in need of protection. In contrast, the Santa Catalina rattlesnake is not listed for protection at all by CITES while the IUCN lists it as “Critically Endangered”. The sabertooth longhorn beetle is a threatened beetle according to IUCN but according to CITES it is not in need of protection. Such discrepancies are legion. 

So, who is to say which organization is accurate? To anyone, accredited or not, who has spent any time surveying these areas, the answer is obvious. If you’ve explored Central America at all, you’ve most likely seen any number of scarlet macaws, usually in pairs, flying overhead. With a massive range and easy sightings, in this case, it’s not hard to discern which of the two bodies is accurate. If you’re familiar with the island of Santa Catalina, you know that its only endemic rattlesnake has a total range of 39 miles. With the introduction of domestic cats and other human encroachments, how could it be anything but endangered? In the case of the sabertooth beetle, it is one of many species that is locally protected in Peru, indicating that those closest to the ground (and not coincidentally, the IUCN as well) have a good idea of its dwindling numbers, while CITES ignores it until and unless there is enough political pressure to act. 

As I stated above, answers to conservation quandaries are often nuanced and complicated, but in general, the closer our conservation efforts are to those who actually interact with the species or are directly affected by the environments we seek to protect, the more effective the resulting protections will be and the more they will be a natural outgrowth of the love of those seeking their protection. Scarlet macaws are large, showy birds that are “obviously” in need of the highest levels of protection according to CITES (even if the data suggests otherwise), but truly endangered rattlesnakes and beetles receive no such protection. The fact that there are literally millions of described beetle species on the planet and CITES only lists a single genus from one single country in the world, speaks volumes as to its priorities and to how closely it attends to the loudest lobbyists.     

In my 25 years of working with individuals (both accredited and not) and institutions (both well-funded and modest) around the world, I have learned some important lessons. That love is not only the most powerful motivator for the protection of nature, but also the most efficient. That beauty is the most effective catalyst for inspiring love of nature, even when that beauty is not immediately discernible. And that neither beauty nor love can be engendered without exposure. With regards to humanity’s intimate yet complicated relationship with the natural world, familiarity breeds the exact opposite of contempt. The more exposure, interaction, and familiarity we have with nature, the more power she has to draw us into a loving relationship that enhances and succors both parties.