I really dislike the way he chooses to popularize interacting with animals. In an era when we’re having massive problems with people choosing to fuck with wildlife because they feel entitled to those personal, free / close contact experiences the last thing we need is another dude who makes those interactions look appealing.
Humans are visual creatures who mimic behaviors that we see others perform. It’s well known in educational communities that people are likely to emulate what they see done, even if it’s accompanied by audio information about why only professionals should do this thing. That’s one reason there’s so much research into the effects viral video media is having – because we know people see something they think is cool and want to do it too, and that the information we provide along with the visual input is rarely as successful.
I don’t personally find the way Peterson chooses to interact with animals (when he is up close) to be respectful or appropriate, and I’ve found multiple episodes that get major side-eye. The best example is how he just “encounters” a purportedly wild cat in an area where they’re known to be, and it’s willing to climb all over him and play with his hat. That is not the behavior of a wild felid – even one that’s been heavily habituated with humans. I ran it past a few professionals I know who have extensive small felid experience, and they agreed that the scenario posited in the video seemed incredibly suspicious.
Similarly, getting bit by insects to create a pain skill would make sense as a research project – but when showcased in a highly popular videos, it becomes sensationalized and likely to be emulated. How many people with something to prove will watch a video about an excruciating bite and then decide that they should prove their toughness by videotaping themselves getting hurt by the same animal?
I’m not here for animal media that popularizes seeking out and interacting with wild animals in ways we know alters public perception. Yes, he’s looking to continue Steve Irwin’s legacy – but the problem is that neither of their methods of education are the type of content needed to change public perceptions about appropriate animal interactions and experiences in 2019. We need media that encourages respectful non-interference with wildlife, not close encounters. Yes, he wants people to watch what he does and fall in love with these animals – but how he goes about it encourages loving wild animals to death by emulating his behavior.
Tag: shows
isnt it hypocritical to hate peterson but love irwin? i mean, they do pretty much the same thing…
If they were both putting out content in the modern era, absolutely. The difference that matters, I think, is cultural context. I really like what @lyrslair said in response to my original post about Irwin’s legacy, so I’m going to copy some of it here:
“Part of the reason Steve did what he did was he was trying to send the message that yes, these animals are scary and dangerous, AND THAT’S OKAY AND THEY ARE STILL BEAUTIFUL AND WORTH PROTECTING even though they are extremely dangerous and should be left alone by humans. (…) His show brought to light more of the “not-cute” animals that previously didn’t get as much positive attention, the lack of which at the time hurt conservation efforts for those animals because at best people didn’t care, and at worst people treated them as a useless nuisance that nobody would miss.
The climate has changed, the narrative has changed, we have more admiration for these creatures now, and now people in retrospect are taking the wrong message from his legacy, because we’ve snipped it up into bits taken out of context without the important part: That these animals are dangerous. That you shouldn’t mess with them. That you should care about them anyway even though it’s a really bad idea to interact. (…) If he were still alive now he would probably change how he handles himself on-screen, because what today’s public needs is not what it needed back when his show was on.”
Steve Irwin was inspiring people to care about animals before we had a glut of media options to expose us to how cool they are. His show started airing in 1996, and ended when he died in 2006 – about a year and a half after Youtube was founded. What wildlife conservation needed then was a charismatic personality who genuinely loved less-popular species and could convince other people to care about them through sheer enthusiasm. Steve Irwin did that job very well, and he inspired a whole ton of people.
Fast forward to over 20 years after his show first aired, and the world is in a totally different place. We’ve got as much animal media as we could possibly want at our fingertips (every wildlife conservation and rescue group has a social media page!), the problems of climate change are super real, and human-animal conflict is becoming a major detriment to the survival of wild animals. We don’t need more charismatic media figures running around getting close to animals to show how cool they are: we have technology like drones and freaking little robot animals with cameras in them that give us an incredibly intimate view of wildlife without interfering with their natural behaviors. What we need now are interpreters who can inspire people to save animals by letting wildlife be wild, and by conserving the habitat and ecosystems they’re dependent on.
If Irwin was filming the same Crocodile Hunter show today that aired when I was a kid, I’d absolutely find it just as inappropriate as I feel Coyote Peterson’s show is. We can’t divorce Irwin’s show from the context it occurred in, and so there’s absolutely no problem with people loving him for who he was and what he did at a time when it was more appropriate. What I’ve been trying to get at today is that an important part of remembering the value his work has is also understanding that it was a product of it’s time, and that similar media isn’t right for this day and age.
Steve Irwin was exactly the dude we needed 20 years ago, but in 2019 – where some of the most viral media involving animals perpetuates types of interactions that are incredibly damaging to the survival of wildlife – we need David Attenborough’s hands-off style of animal education more than we need Steve’s.
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