Celebrated Turtle Photographer Has His Award Taken Away for Using Pictures of Women in Bathing Suits

Source – Normally, the acceptance address for the Herpetologists’ League annual award for Distinguished Herpetologist doesn’t make the news. This year is different — and not because Dick Vogt chose “The Excitement of River Turtles from the Mississippi to the Amazon” for his topic.

Instead, it was the photographs he chose to illustrate his topic that are bringing unwanted attention to him and the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists (fish scientists) and Herpetologists (amphibians and reptiles), taking place this week in Rochester.

According to several attendees, Vogt, a longtime researcher of Brazilian turtles, showed several pictures of “scantily clad female students” doing field research. The photographs were risqué enough that conference organizers added blue boxes to cover parts of the women’s bodies.

The controversy peaked Friday night when the Herpetologists’ League rescinded Vogt’s award and apologized for the “offensive content” in his slides. …

Adam Summers, an ichthyologist in attendance, wrote on Twitter: “Herp League decided the most distinguished herpetologist they could find was Dick Vogt. His talk included scantily clad female students. Blue box cover ups were added without Vogt’s knowledge.”

I’m going to try to not let this destroy my faith in the Herpetologist and Ichtyyologist communities. You’d think a population who calls themselves the Herp League and dedicate their lives to the study of cold-blooded aquatic creatures would be a little looser and more fun loving, but go figure people.

You’ve got to hand it to our boy Dick Vogt here. It can’t be easy trying to hold the interest of a group with a lecture entitled “The Excitement of River Turtles from the Mississippi to the Amazon.” So he tried to sex things up a bit. Probably to reduce the death rate of his earlier lectures from people swallowing their tongues from boredom and putting bullets into their brains.

And I’m sure you never heard this before because I’m just making it up right now off the top of my head: Sex sells. Hef didn’t get to buy a mansion and a 747 by publishing interviews with Norman Mailer and article about the best watches for men. I say this as a guy who works for a major global entertainment empire that was built on top quality writing but also attractive women volunteering to be shown in their swimwear. And to be clear, that’s who Dick Vogt’s models are. I mean, apparently these were students and not girls taken off the streets by Eastern European human traffickers.

But the narrow demo of the turtle and fish crowd doesn’t go for that sort of thing, I guess. Even though you’d think it would liven things up at the meetings quite a bit. Who wouldn’t want to turn this stock photo of a sea turtle:

… into this SI Swimsuit issue picture of sea turtles with model Nina Agdal?

Same species, just with a different presentation. Or consider this picture of a man with a fish:

… now replace the man with instant Sex Scandal Teacher legend Stephanie Peterson:

The fish isn’t as impressive. But I’ll take that lecture all day long. It’s just human nature. Unless that is, you’re dealing with those bunch of Puritans over at the Herpetologist League. But don’t let the bastards tear you down, Dick. We get you. And if Barstool ever decides to dedicate space to turtle and fish photo spreads, we know whom to call.