March 25, 2014

Viewers are Furious With Animal Planet for Mistreating Animals on “Reality TV”


Upset viewers of Animal Planet are venting on social media after Mother Jones uncovered photographic evidence of animal mistreatment behind the scenes of the TV network’s hit show, Call of the Wildman.

Every garden-variety item that the network has posted on its Facebook page since our investigation published on Monday—the rescue of a baby moose, the birth of an endangered kakapo, photos of “15 puppies so precious you’ll forget your own name“—has been flooded with comments about the much sadder coyote photo included in our report, which reveals the animal confined to a cramped trap three days before a film shoot in which the animal handler and Wildman star known as Turtleman planned to “capture” it by hand.

Under the baby moose post—which asks Animal Planet followers, “Who doesn’t love a happy ending, especially when it involves an animal as cute as this one?”—D’Shannon Llewellyn writes: “We all love happy endings but more so when they aren’t staged and involve abuse and stress that is intentionally inflicted on the animal for the financial profit of your tv station. #CalloftheWildman Staged, Abusive, and certainly not animal loving.”

Rona Seltzer posted a message echoed by other commenters, writing that she has now “stopped watching/supporting animal planet due to so many stories about abuse on some of their shows.”

“The images and investigation coming out of that show are absolutely disgusting,” wrote Ryan M Simmons. “It’s 2014, not 1814. The short lived days of glamorizing white trash who have no regards for the well being of animals have passed.”

More from Animal Planet’s Facebook page on Tuesday:

Amid a lengthy thread on the Facebook page of Animal Place, a sanctuary for farmed animals in California, Barb Ruguone summarizes a theme pointed out by multiple commenters: “You’d think that a channel named Animal Planet would be working for the humane treatment of animals and education and not contribute to their abuse. I was so sad to learn of their part in abuse.”

There has been a similar outpouring on Twitter. Michael McIntyre ‏(@FeverCityStudio) summed up the mood this way:

Meanwhile, on Turtleman’s own Facebook page, fans either seem unaware of the revelations or they are sticking by their guy: 

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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