Animal Planet’s Turtleman Returns to Air Despite Damning Federal Investigation

USDA documents reveal federal officials’ concerns about the treatment of animals on the hit show “Call of the Wildman.”

Photo montage by Clay Jackson, Advocate Messenger/AP Photo/USDA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Earlier this year, Mother Jones reported on malnourished raccoons, caged coyotes, and bats left for dead behind the scenes of Animal Planet’s hit show Call of the Wildman. During a seven-month investigation, we discovered that the show’s producers routinely sourced trapped wildlife to perform roles in heavily scripted “rescue” scenes.

Now, federal authorities have confirmed cases of animal mistreatment in the show. In a 60-page internal dossier, one investigator says animals used on set likely suffered “deprivation and distress” that “threatened their health and well-being.”

The USDA found that the show’s animals likely suffered “deprivation and distress” that “threatened their health and well-being.”

The documents from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)—released for the first time to Mother Jones—reveal investigators criticizing the show’s producers for supplying “contradictory and incomplete” statements to authorities, and calling for a “more exhaustive and detailed” investigation than the preliminary “fact finding” the department has been engaged in since Mother Jones first broke the story.

Inspectors also fault the show’s star, Ernie Brown Jr., known as Turtleman, for traumatizing a protected species of zebra by tackling the animal to the ground by its neck, all with the cameras rolling. The zebra’s owner, a production contractor, was issued a formal citation for non-compliance with the Animal Welfare Act in March.

The complete dossier—a mix of emails, case files, and memoranda compiled over four months by one of the USDA’s law enforcement arms—contains new details that add to Mother Jones’s reporting about the show’s cavalier production practices.

In one lengthy memo, USDA animal welfare inspector Juan F. Arango writes:

Although they deny it, Sharp Entertainment acquires, holds, uses and disposes of the animals during and after the filming the show…It appears that Sharp Entertainment could not legally become licensed to use trapped or captured native wildlife without circumventing state law.

Neither Sharp nor Animal Planet responded to questions from Mother Jones. Reached by phone, Animal Planet’s vice president for communications, Patricia Kollappallil, declined to comment on the internal USDA report or refer questions. “I don’t think there’s anybody that’s equipped to speak with you, frankly,” she said. “I’m going to hang up.”

In spite of grave concerns, Call of the Wildman is back on the air

Despite the federal investigation, Animal Planet premiered a new run of the show with an episode called “Phantom Menace” last Sunday, June 8. Animal Planet Canada, one of the network’s sister channels, abruptly canceled future episodes of the show in April, saying the show had stopped “resonating with Canadian audiences.”

The show returns to US airwaves amid concerns by state officials in Kentucky that Turtleman might be planning to film new episodes without holding a proper wildlife permit to catch animals himself—the defining part of Turtleman’s on-camera performance. As of Monday this week, officials with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed that Ernie Brown Jr. does not possess a current Nuisance Wildlife Control Officer (NWCO) license, a permit he has previously held and that enables him to catch and handle wildlife.

“They shouldn’t be doing anything in Kentucky,” says Mark Marraccini, a spokesperson for the department, referring to filming.

The show’s producers have not contacted the department, which overseas the licenses, to notify officials of their intentions, Marraccini says. But multiple sources have told Mother Jones the show is “in production.”

An official citation against the owner of a zebra

In the Texas-based episode of the show called “Lone Stars and Stripes”, Turtleman chases a Grévy’s zebra—an animal protected under the Endangered Species Act—before cornering it and tackling it to the ground. Jason Clay, owner of the zebra and an animal park called Franklin Drive-Thru Safari, told Mother Jones that the animal was treated properly by the crew. But USDA’s inspection report confirms that by allowing Brown to tackle the animal, Clay did not comply with the part of the Animal Welfare Act that prohibits handling animals in a manner that could cause “trauma, behavioral stress, physical harm or unnecessary discomfort.” Clay could not be reached for comment on the citation, and did not return a message left at the Franklin Drive-Thru Safari.

Baby raccoons used on the show likely “experienced unnecessary deprivation and distress, accompanied by a lack of adequate veterinary care.”

Sick baby raccoons left in the care of production staffers

The USDA documents also reveal new details of the saga that eventually led to the death of one of the raccoons used for a 2012 episode involving the staged “rescue” of a family of raccoons. The investigator found that the vet who received the baby raccoons as part of the episode’s rescue scene immediately diagnosed the babies with dehydration, contradicting Sharp Entertainment’s earlier statements to Mother Jones that the baby raccoons were transferred to the vet in question in a good condition, and “by all accounts were healthy.”

Arango concludes in his investigation notes that show’s producers likely exposed raccoons in its care to unnecessary harm through mistreatment:

… based on the age and medical history of the raccoon kits used on the show, and what appeared to be inappropriate handling, it is likely that these animals experienced unnecessary deprivation and distress, accompanied by a lack of adequate veterinary care, which threatened their health and well being.

Arango also found that that “the raccoons were acquired by Sharp on April 5, at least 7 days before they were released or transferred on April 12.” This would place the handling of the raccoons well outside the maximum 48 hours allowed under Kentucky law.

Disappointment greets the show’s return to Animal Planet

Animal welfare organizations are upset about the return of the show to Animal Planet on Sunday, and have renewed calls for its cancelation.

“The Humane Society of the United States is disappointed that the network has decided to renew Call of the Wildman in the face of allegations that the animals were taken from the wild, became sick, and endured inappropriate confinement on previous shows,” said Nicole Paquette, a vice president for the organization. “We urge the network to take immediate action and discontinue this program. The only way to ensure animals are not harmed is to not use them.” Carter Dillard, from the Animal Legal Defens4e Fund praised the USDA’s investigative work, saying that it shows “significant violations and pattern in practice across multiple licensees.”

Elsewhere, wildlife officials with the state of Texas and the city of Houston both have separate, ongoing formal investigations into Call of the Wildman.

Meanwhile, fans of Animal Planet’s brand of reality TV enjoyed a double-dose of Turtleman on Sunday. Before Call of the Wildman aired last Sunday, Turtleman and his sidekick Neal made cameo appearances in the season premiere of Finding Bigfoot, a show that follows researchers who collect evidence for the existence of the mysterious Sasquatch.

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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

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.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

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.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate