Watched it this evening and found it really disturbing. The sight of 30 lions bringing down an elephant was pretty haunting. I had read about this a few weeks ago online. Tonight it showed around 5 minutes of the hunt but in reality to actually kill the elephant once it was down took much longer. Tough to watch it, can only imagine what it was like filming it.
Planet Earth
- Thread starter Guest_
- Start date
I was at my cuz's and fortunately her husband fast-forwarded through that. The sight of the wee elephant charging off in distress, with the commentary informing us 'but these are specialist elephant hunters' as the lions sprang on it, was too upsetting to watch past that. I'd be bloody useless on a wild life programme - I'd be out of the Jeep, letting off fire-crackers and shooing the lions off!
Many 'wild' life programmes annoy the hell out of me. They focus in on some poor, limping, starving wee animal and intone piously about how it's dying slowly. Then they all bog back to their safari lodge and chow down on their buffalo steaks, potatoes, salads, and well-chilled Chardonnay. Just chuck it the carcase, for Christ's sake! "We mustn't interfere with the wild life," they primly announce, interrupting a jackal hunt to film and to do exactly that. Cobblers.
Many 'wild' life programmes annoy the hell out of me. They focus in on some poor, limping, starving wee animal and intone piously about how it's dying slowly. Then they all bog back to their safari lodge and chow down on their buffalo steaks, potatoes, salads, and well-chilled Chardonnay. Just chuck it the carcase, for Christ's sake! "We mustn't interfere with the wild life," they primly announce, interrupting a jackal hunt to film and to do exactly that. Cobblers.
Euronymous
Senior Jockey
True Kri, they made a nice point of showing one of the crew rescuing a baby Penguin trapped under ice in the how they do it segment at the end of the previous week`s programme.
Doesnt really compare....
These cannot interfere in hunts etc as their out come will effect the the lives of the hunters. In tonights show the lions were hunting elephants....the only reason they did this was because they had not eaten in weeks and were desperate. Had they interfered and helped the elephant it would have led to the lions possibly dying...is that right? The baby penguin was trapped but his release effected nothing else other than the penguin.
These cannot interfere in hunts etc as their out come will effect the the lives of the hunters. In tonights show the lions were hunting elephants....the only reason they did this was because they had not eaten in weeks and were desperate. Had they interfered and helped the elephant it would have led to the lions possibly dying...is that right? The baby penguin was trapped but his release effected nothing else other than the penguin.
Merlin the Magician
At the Start
JUNGLE = a harsh environment characterized by fierce competitiveness or struggle for survival,(a bit like trying to post your views-opinions on here? 
:lol: ) that’s its meaning, and if they are filming, you’re obviously going to know that there will be a kill on this type of programme? If you don’t like it just turn it off....
My point, Galileo, which I think I made in a particularly succinct way, was that the lions were indeed very hungry, so why couldn't the damn film crew have chucked them a half side of meat? It's IN ORDER TO GET THE SHOT OF KILLING (or dying) that they 'don't interfere'.
There are thousands of carnivores kept for viewing at game lodges throughout Africa, where goats, chickens, buck and cattle are killed to feed them. They're supposed to be wild, but obviously they get fed so that the tourists aren't faced with the unedifying sight of emaciated, staggering starvation cases, and decide not to visit again. All that film crews would have to do - if they found emaciated, staggering starvation cases, would be to chuck them a few carcases and end the suffering.
As I said, THEY go back to their braaivleis or whatever the African cook's prepared for them that night - the 'desperate lions/jackals/wild dogs/cheetahs' are filmed, and aren't given any food. It's absolute cobblers to pretend that wild life documentary makers aren't interfering with nature - they're setting up night shoots, day shoots, rattling around in noisy Land Rovers, followed by any number of chase vehicles, helicopters or light aircraft for those 'amazing aerial shots', and also setting up camps complete with smoky fires. There are so many of these, plus the regular safari tourists in their thousands every year, that the interference levels are so high that they've begun to affect the breeding patterns of some animals!
Merlin, viewers are warned there will be a kill, so that those who don't want to see it can pop out and make a cup of tea. That wasn't the point of this discussion - whether we liked the programme or not. The point was about film-makers 'not interfering' with the natural course of the animals' lives, which is bollocks, because they're interfering with them all the time they're filming them. You only have to hear how many times their - or the tourists' - shutters whirr and distract a leopard or cheetah from its kill to know that. I think we're all aware we can turn off our tvs, just as we don't have to read or contribute to topics on here that we don't like.
There are thousands of carnivores kept for viewing at game lodges throughout Africa, where goats, chickens, buck and cattle are killed to feed them. They're supposed to be wild, but obviously they get fed so that the tourists aren't faced with the unedifying sight of emaciated, staggering starvation cases, and decide not to visit again. All that film crews would have to do - if they found emaciated, staggering starvation cases, would be to chuck them a few carcases and end the suffering.
As I said, THEY go back to their braaivleis or whatever the African cook's prepared for them that night - the 'desperate lions/jackals/wild dogs/cheetahs' are filmed, and aren't given any food. It's absolute cobblers to pretend that wild life documentary makers aren't interfering with nature - they're setting up night shoots, day shoots, rattling around in noisy Land Rovers, followed by any number of chase vehicles, helicopters or light aircraft for those 'amazing aerial shots', and also setting up camps complete with smoky fires. There are so many of these, plus the regular safari tourists in their thousands every year, that the interference levels are so high that they've begun to affect the breeding patterns of some animals!
Merlin, viewers are warned there will be a kill, so that those who don't want to see it can pop out and make a cup of tea. That wasn't the point of this discussion - whether we liked the programme or not. The point was about film-makers 'not interfering' with the natural course of the animals' lives, which is bollocks, because they're interfering with them all the time they're filming them. You only have to hear how many times their - or the tourists' - shutters whirr and distract a leopard or cheetah from its kill to know that. I think we're all aware we can turn off our tvs, just as we don't have to read or contribute to topics on here that we don't like.
I can't imagine there's a person alive who isn't aware that carnivores live by killing other creatures, Gareth, starting with humans. We just don't preface most features on food and drink by showing lambs being slaughtered to show us how we get our shanks in rosemary. We gloss over the British countryside by showing cute fox cubs gambolling in sunlight, not their parents ripping chunks out of living lambs. We go to Africa, and we do kill shots to prove that 'nature is red in tooth and claw' - but it's by no means as red as domestic slaughter by the million every day worldwide, only perhaps more artistic.
I'm not saying you don't show how meat is obtained for both human and animal consumption, whether it's abattoirs, tribes spearing buck, cats killing mice, or lions killing elephants, it's that I object to being told again and again that xyz is 'starving/close to death' etc. when the crew can do something about it. But they would rather have the kill/dying shot for their film than throw a cheaply-bought carcase to a pack of wild dogs.
I find it a hypocrisy because they're already doing what they say they shouldn't do - 'interfere' with the animals' lives. The years-long safari series on BBC1 showed baboons climbing all over the crews' vehicles, and one of the cheetahs so humanised that she used the top of a Land Rover as her resting-place and lookout. Then we saw her cub being stalked by two incoming lions and were told that unless he hid, he would be killed, but there was 'nothing we can do about it, although we want to'. In another lengthy piece, a well-known leopardess was so used to Saba Douglas-Hamilton that she walked only yards from her 'Rover. That is double-talk. You can't allow animals to be so used to your presence that they adopt your vehicles (with you and your cameraman inside), and then pretend you can't intercept the lions from the wee cub. The cub later went missing, presumed killed, and we were told that that was 'one of the really upsetting things about making these films'. I'm not saying I don't accept that such things happen - far from it - just that there is a load of tosh talked about 'not interfering with their lives'. I probably ought to get out more... :brows:
I'm not saying you don't show how meat is obtained for both human and animal consumption, whether it's abattoirs, tribes spearing buck, cats killing mice, or lions killing elephants, it's that I object to being told again and again that xyz is 'starving/close to death' etc. when the crew can do something about it. But they would rather have the kill/dying shot for their film than throw a cheaply-bought carcase to a pack of wild dogs.
I find it a hypocrisy because they're already doing what they say they shouldn't do - 'interfere' with the animals' lives. The years-long safari series on BBC1 showed baboons climbing all over the crews' vehicles, and one of the cheetahs so humanised that she used the top of a Land Rover as her resting-place and lookout. Then we saw her cub being stalked by two incoming lions and were told that unless he hid, he would be killed, but there was 'nothing we can do about it, although we want to'. In another lengthy piece, a well-known leopardess was so used to Saba Douglas-Hamilton that she walked only yards from her 'Rover. That is double-talk. You can't allow animals to be so used to your presence that they adopt your vehicles (with you and your cameraman inside), and then pretend you can't intercept the lions from the wee cub. The cub later went missing, presumed killed, and we were told that that was 'one of the really upsetting things about making these films'. I'm not saying I don't accept that such things happen - far from it - just that there is a load of tosh talked about 'not interfering with their lives'. I probably ought to get out more... :brows:
Its just the cycle of life, it was only the other day i saw a spiders web in the corner of the room where the wife forgot to polish and a daddy long legs flew into it to which a massive spider just appeared and ripped the legs off this unsuspecting insect leaving it dead, so i then killed the spider keeping up the cycle, I'm now awaiting nervously something bigger than me to jump out the woodwork and slaughter me to death.
I can't say too much about insects' cruelty to insects (yes, yes, I KNOW that technically spiders aren't insects!) as I used to blat flies and take them out into the garden to feed the mantises. :shy: I was so amazed at the speed of the strike, and the equal speed of devouring them, that I wanted to see how it was done. No mantis ever starved photographically to death in our garden!
I also used to interfere with the natural lives of bats by calling them at dusk, so that many swooped right down over my head. I also loved the tickle of beetles held in the hand, and a chameleon's slow, tightly-gripped progress over my head... :brows: maybe not for everyone, but I do love insects and tiny creatures.
Further nature notes: I've just chucked out a stale sarnie for tomorrow morning's inbound gulls, and it's just being carted off by two large rats... oh, dear. I've interfered with the rhythm of nature once again!
A
Ardross
Guest
Showing my age when i first saw this thread I thought of the first Duran Duran album :shy:
Shadow Leader
At the Start
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2003
- Messages
- 9,884
Well so far I've escaped being mauled wearing my "Felix Says Fight The Ban" sweatshirt extensively in public - I've received a few dodgy looks mind! I just wish someone would have the bottle to tackle me on it....
The most wonderful super-slow film to show the growth of fungi - what a disgusting thing that was which took over the poor ants and literally ate their brains before hatching. I wonder if 'Alien' took a cue from that? The chimps' march to the rumble in the jungle should've been matched to the famous walk from 'Reservoir Dogs', though. They looked ready for trouble, and they certainly made sure they got it.
It's a beautiful series. Filmwork nowadays gives us the most amazing insights into so much which has been hidden from human eyes for so long. The poor cameraman stuck in the hides to get a few seconds' worth of the birds' courtship displays show the unglamorous side of the work, though.
It's a beautiful series. Filmwork nowadays gives us the most amazing insights into so much which has been hidden from human eyes for so long. The poor cameraman stuck in the hides to get a few seconds' worth of the birds' courtship displays show the unglamorous side of the work, though.
Merlin the Magician
At the Start
Do you see what us males have to do to try and catch one of you birds......surely a drop of vodka suffices nowdays??????????
Diamond Geezer
Gone But Not Forgotten
- Joined
- May 2, 2003
- Messages
- 13,884
Anyone watching the Alan Titchmarsh series before Planet Earth ? The footage from Cornwall is shot on the beaches where I live ( Bude and Widemouth Bay)
BrianH
At the Start
What I want to know is who found out that ants become infected with the cordyceps fungus and that it grows in their brains prompting them to run upwards and then shooting its stroma out of their heads to distribute its spores over the widest possible area. And how they did.
An amazing, revolting fungus. All the other examples were equally appalling - and a special fungus for each type of victim, too. The one covering the moth was almost beautiful, like lacework - I don't think I've seen pictures of anything so other-worldly as its work. The variety growing out of the grasshopper looked like tiny, tiny toadstools. Thank God there isn't one for humans.
The first observers might've been the indigenous tribespeople, seeing the healthy ants carting off the infected ones and wondering what was going on. Ants are so brilliant like that - I was always fascinated by the detritus from their homes, mounded outside. Beetle wing cases, assorted dried insect legs, heads and wings, husks of seeds, and the dry carcases of their own deceased. The workers would place the throw-outs carefully, not just litter everywhere. And absolutely no graffiti.
The first observers might've been the indigenous tribespeople, seeing the healthy ants carting off the infected ones and wondering what was going on. Ants are so brilliant like that - I was always fascinated by the detritus from their homes, mounded outside. Beetle wing cases, assorted dried insect legs, heads and wings, husks of seeds, and the dry carcases of their own deceased. The workers would place the throw-outs carefully, not just litter everywhere. And absolutely no graffiti.
BrianH
At the Start
But they won't cross a chalk line...