Joann Brennan
“Scary Man” frightening device designed to deter coyotes and wolves from predating livestock. National Wildlife Research Center, Estes Park, Colorado.
From the series Managing Eden
Fall 2003
Pigment print
20 x 24 inches
Courtesy of the artist
© Joann Brennan – Managing Eden

Based in Denver, Colorado, Joann Brennan has concentrated her photographic work over the past twenty years on the efforts of scientists to maintain the delicate balance between human needs and interests and those of wildlife populations. Human construction often interferes with the less obvious byways of wildlife, cutting animals off from established routes used for migration, mating, or foraging. Air travel, for instance. Primary hazards for our elaborate metal flying machines are the bird that inspired their invention in the first place, and with whom they share the skies. While human beings often project their own form and characteristics on the natural world, imagining that other beasts experience the world as we do, in this case a human form is being used to scare animals away for safety reasons, though to us the inflatable yellow figure is more humorous than threatening.