There is no doubt that for many years, and quite possibly decades, animal and nature oriented television networks including Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and Animal Planet for example, have long served as memorable, reliable, and entertaining sources of information for all individuals and families alike. This has typically been achieved through the airing of many well known programs and individuals such as Steve Irwin and his loving family/co-workers, Mark O’Shea, and Jeff Corwin to name a few. Within these programs, these noble animal, natural history, and environmental educators constantly stressed the importance of becoming aware of, learning about, and ultimately respecting animals, nature, and the environment.

However, over last several recent years, a disturbing and appalling new trend has emerged within these television networks as well as many others that has slowly but steadily replaced the aforementioned types of programming that so many people love and enjoy. This “new generation” of television programming now focuses far more heavily on exploiting and appealing to the human’s rudimentary senses or emotions such as fear.

As a result, viewers of these networks are now being exposed to a far greater number of heavily sensationalized programs and TV series emphasizing largely on captive animal maulings, attacks, fatalities, escapes, and other incidents/accidents, particularly with reptiles.

One of the irritating aspects about such programs in particular is how Animal Planet seems to be deliberately going out of its way in portraying, whether directly or indirectly, reptile keepers, or anyone who is fascinated by or interested in reptiles and other exotics for that matter, as dangerous, "socially deviant" members of society. That alone not only is alienating a sizeable portion of their own viewership base, but also plays quite well with the Animal Rights agenda that aims to ultimatly aims to outlaw all private keeping of animals in captivity through the spreading of fear amongst the public who watch these programs, while at the same time marginalizing any possible opposition along the way. Propaganda at its finest!

Perhaps even more disturbing is the noticeable absence of any trained or qualified psychologists or other medical professionals interviewed for this specific program, with AP instead seemingly relying on the possibly biased testimonials and accounts of the victim's friends and relatives, none of which to my knowledge, hold any significant background in psychology or animal biology . Such accounts can therefore not be considered as credible in determining another given individual's motives or psychological drives.

The fact that personally irritates me even further is how hundreds of people are killed or severely mauled or injured by their cats, horses, dogs, or other domesticated species each year, and yet Animal Planet has yet to produce any series or program on how those individual's love and interest of such animals is an "ill fated endeavor from the start" and how these individuals must therefore possess some abnormal psychological drive to want to own those animals. I would be willing to safely assume, that if Animal Planet were to air such depictions of domesticated animal owners, that there would be a tremendous outrage from the "mainstream" animal and pet owning public. They would likely view such a program and the statements it implies about them as blatantly offensive, false, and disrespectful. They would likely feel lied about, misrepresented, and believe that there are ulterior motives and agendas behind Animal Planet airing such programs.

But yet Animal Planet apparently feels that it is perfectly acceptable to slander and misrepresent the reptile, and exotics community without any consequence or accountability as a means to garner ratings and viewership? Has Animal Planet truly become this morally bankrupt?

It is certainly understood that one of the objectives of television and media networks is to maximize their viewership and subsequent ratings. However, ratings driven businesses such as Animal Planet have clearly crossed over the lines of ethics and responsible programming when they are so willing to consider scare tactics, outright lies and misinformation, and gross mis-characterizations of an already ground of animals and the thousands that enjoy keeping and interacting with them as acceptable methods to achieve that end. Furthermore, the implications extend far beyond providing simple entertainment value alone for viewers. Such widespread and reckless use and perpetuation of many outright myths, stereotypes/prejudices, and misinformation by these and other media networks is (and should be considered) not only incredibly irresponsible programming of questionable merit, but is also a direct undoing of the tireless educational efforts of the late Steve Irwin and others as well as thousands of passionate and dedicated reptile hobbyists and environmental educators worldwide who strive to educate the public about these animals on a daily basis. These programs are performing a great disservice that is contrary to the efforts and goals of all of these individuals. 

There now appears to be even more deliberate efforts by the Animal Planet Channel in particular to further demonize and discredit the reptile and exotics community bearing disturbing similarity to the Humane Society of the United State's (HSUS's) publicly stated agenda to obliterate the reptile industry. Animal Planet now has even published several online articles against the ownership of our beloved animals which reads almost verbatim to that of H.S.U.S propaganda. It should therefore come as no surprise that HSUS (and several other known animal rights organizations) are therefore listed as Animal Planet R.O.A.R. partners.

Whether you enjoy to or not, we all must actively respond to and debunk these types of sensationalistic, pseudo-psychoanalytic forms of television "propaganda", as such networks and programs unfortunately have undue influence on the public who views them. As we are all aware, perception often shapes reality, and if the general public is led into believing that the extremes depicted on these television programs are the commonplace norms, I somehow doubt that they will subsequently stand in line to support animal ownership, the private conservation efforts through captive breeding of many rare or imperiled species within our hobby, or further exploration into our knowledge and understanding of the natural world in general. And this sort of fear mongering all plays right into the hands of the Animal Rights agenda that no captive animals should exist or be owned by humans.

We as the reptile industry can slowly attain this effort through continuing our efforts to educate and increase awareness/understanding/acceptance of these animals and their care, and by serving and acting as a knowledgeable resources for the correct and factual information. Knowledge, awareness, and truth are the antidotes to these seemingly malignant "reality style" TV shows.

At some point, these formerly reputable networks need to again begin to care about more than the almighty dollar alone. Isn't it time that we demand greater accountability in television programming?