Animal Exploitation in the Media

This weekend, two shows about human interaction with animals and our natural surroundings aired at the same time.

One, PBS’s film about America’s national parks, was an inspirational tale of vision and understanding of the value of nature – particularly the value of predatory animals like bears and wolves. At one time in our history, there was an explicit goal to eliminate all wolves from our lands – and it almost succeeded.  It makes sense.  Wolves hunt for the same things we eat, so the initial reaction was to eliminate them.  But, as the PBS film portrays, our outlook gradually changed, thanks to some of our country’s animal and nature conservation pioneers.  Of course a film about the American national parks covers much more than just our interaction with and understanding of animals.  It is well worth a viewing!

The other was a Discovery Channel show: Lion Feeding Frenzy.  In this video, a lion expert and the show’s host study lions and their hunting abilities by baiting them into some tests while observing from a protective box.  They bait the lions with meat hung on a rope from a tree and observe as the lions leap to take the bait.  When more lions notice, one of the observers declares:  ”Any second, this group of aggressive males could attack us from all angles!”

I understand that portraying a terrifying killer probably sells better than educating on the ways of nature and importance of these (and other) creatures.  After all, the first has an audience of everybody and the latter has an audience only of people who care.  Discovery has done a great job over the years of growing the number of people who care, but they also sell media and have to attract viewers.  Terrifying and/or sensational videos such as “Lion Feeding Frenzy”, “Bear Feeding Frenzy”, “Crocodile Feeding Frenzy” and much of the programming during Shark Week (“Missing Limbs”, “Bloody Aftermath”, “Jaws in the Creek”) may attract more viewers, but they aren’t among Discovery’s most sustainable, conservation education pieces.