Disappointed in Discovery

I don’t know about other documentary viewers, but when I watch documentaries I expect to be given facts or theories backed up by professional sources. I get tired of all the bullshit mind-numbing reality shows on TV and like to use my TV time for educational purposes. I can’t say this is true for me 100% of the time; God knows I love a good Scrubs episode or movie with Dewayne Johnson in it, but I do my best to avoid being forced to keep up with the Kardashians or wanting to claw my eyes out during Real Housewives of wherever.

So, I’ll get to my point here. August 10th marked the first day of Shark Week, a week that the Discovery Channel dedicates to documentaries, movies, and shows all about, you guessed it, sharks. It sounds awesome, because it is awesome. People get extremely excited about Shark Week and talk of it tears through social media like a hurricane.

However, this past Sunday night a “documentary” called “Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine” premiered and horrified fans. These fans were not horrified because a 38-foot shark named Submarine was eating people (well, ok, some who fell for the cheesy acting and shitty computer-generated shark and attack scenes were), but because the entire two-hour “documentary” was absolutely and completely bullshit. Erroneous. False. Lies. None of it ever happened.

The Internet is now exploding with articles and opinions (like my own) about how disappointed people are in the Discovery Channel for creating mockumentaries or docufictions to simply boost ratings and money. If this is the reaction they are receiving, shouldn’t they be worried about losing ratings and money? This isn’t the first time Discovery has done this during Shark Week (see LA List or Gawker) and apparently isn’t the last.

The fake documentary Discovery premiered last year is going to be shown again on the channel, this time with an extra hour of “new evidence.” All this nonsense makes me wonder how often the Discovery Channel fabricates its documentaries. This film, and others like it, isn’t good for anyone. Discovery outraged viewers, viewers wasted their time, and shit like that just feeds into the bad rep that sharks have! Using quotes and footage out of context is probably more dangerous than swimming with sharks (whose favorite food is not humans, by the way), and since when are actors hired for a documentary?

Raju’s tears

The heart-wrenching story of Raju, the rescued/crying elephant, has been flying around the internet for the past few weeks causing a lot of new awareness of the horrid treatment of captive elephants. As great as it is that more people are finally interested in the treatment of animals, it’s extremely sad that it had to come to this to make them realize what is going on in our world all around us, at all times. This is just one elephant; one individual who had to wait 50 years for a happy ending.

Now-famous photo of Raju crying

A few days after this story was released, CNN did a follow-up and explained that Raju is not the only one of his kind.  They said that thousands of elephants are still living like Raju did before his rescue: malnourished, constricted by painful chains, and beaten. I fear that this story, the one that is yet to have a happy ending, hasn’t become as popular as the original. The only way to change anything is by team work and/or a lot of money. If more people learn about this issue, my hope is that more will care and try to do something about it.

A big problem with cases like Raju’s is that many simply become fads. They hang around in the media for a while, causing controversy and mutual uproar, but then people slowly begin to forget and get on with their normal lives, completely ignoring the multitude of animals in need.

Maybe this story will help raise money to rescue a few more elephants, but what about all of the other animals out there being beaten, starved, and forced into unlivable conditions with no way out? This shit isn’t just happening overseas. It’s happening here, in America. It’s happening in Mexico, it’s happening in South America, it’s happening in Italy, France, Japan, Russia, Australia and every other continent and country where humans exist.

Raju’s story is barely even the tip of the giant, frozen iceberg of animal cruelty. More people need to know, more people need to care, and more people need to act. The problem is that most people don’t know how to act–myself included. I’d love to make a career out of helping animals, the hardest part is finding where to start. I’m open to any and all suggestions!

Is Hunting Helping?

Last Saturday I read an article on CNN that sparked my interest. Granted many CNN stories spark my interest, but this one was about black rhinos, a critically endangered species, and an auction to hunt them. At first glance I was very confused about why someone would be auctioning off the hunting rights to an endangered species, but as I read on I found out the auction was sponsored by Dallas Safari Club in the name of conservation.

By Stromayer, Karl [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Before I looked up Dallas Safari Club I figured they were a conservation group focusing on safari animals. I was wrong. Their URL is biggame.org and they claim to be “The greatest hunters convention on the planet.” Now I have nothing against hunting, I think it’s a hell of a lot better than the mass production of meat in the US, but over hunting and hunting endangered species do tend to rub me the wrong way.

The auction winner’s name was leaked out on social media and the article I read today spoke of the death threats he and his family are receiving. The hunter has become the hunted and he doesn’t seem to like it. Corey Knowlton won the auction with his $350,000, which will be donated to the Namibian government and put toward conservation efforts, and is sticking to his guns (literally) with the excuse of doing it all for the sake of wildlife conservation.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think encouraging the hunting of an endangered species is the best way to conserve said species. On the other hand, that was probably the quickest, easiest, and largest lump sum of cash the Namibian government has ever received for black rhino conservation efforts.

What do you think?

Greenhill Humane Society

An audio slideshow of Sasha Elliott’s thoughts and information about the animal shelter.

Greenhill Humane Society

Doing the best they can to provide new happy homes

(I accidentally published this to my personal blog rather than my class blog…but I’ll leave it here anyway! This is for my J333 Writing for Multimedia class)

I have made my final decision to do my term project on Greenhill Humane Society. I knew I wanted to involve animals in my project because I grew up surrounded by them and can’t help but to love every species. Due to other time commitments (useless things like school, projects, writing for magazines, and work) and pet restrictions at my apartment, I never get the chance to be around furry, fuzzy, feathery, slimy, or scaly creatures. Unless you count my roommate. In other words, I love animals, I want to help animals, so why not do a project promoting animal adoption?

On Sunday I decided to go sniffing around Greenhill. It seems like it is out in the middle of nowhere, but once I got there I was overcome by many different emotions. I was so happy to see some friendly dogs who just wanted to be let out to play (I’m assuming by the wag of their tails and jumping on the door to the cage), but also heartbroken to see the other dogs cowering in a corner as far away from viewers as possible. Each dog had a sign by his or her kennel describing his/her personality, age, medical history, and of course, name.

After saying goodbye to the precious pups, I wandered over to the “small pet” section. The first thing I saw was a boy, ok I guess he was a man, in a cage. I held back from asking if he was up for adoption when I saw he was wearing a “Volunteer” shirt and petting a bunny.

We talked and after asking a few questions I learned several different rabbit’s names and some information about volunteering at the shelter. A while later he directed me to the “Cattery,” my last stop at the shelter.

The Cattery is a very bright and welcoming room with all sorts of cat toys and climbable structures and scratching posts. As one would imagine, the place was crawling with cats and kittens. I think when crazy cat ladies die, their heaven is a place extremely similar to the Cattery.

After observing the cats long enough to replicate their agile moves (I’ve always wanted to be Cat Woman), I decided to end my self-led tour. I now have an interview scheduled for Tuesday, October 8 with a woman named Sasha so I can get an insight on the day-to-day lives of the residing pets. I’m excited to go back and visit my furry friends again!