Wildlife documentaries infringe animals' privacy, says report

[Chris_]

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/30/animals-right-privacy-denied-wildlife-documentaries/?test=latestnews

Animals’ Right to Privacy Denied by Wildlife Documentaries, Says Researcher



Animals filmed for television wildlife documentary series are denied their right to privacy, a leading U.K. academic claimed in a report that emerged Friday 

Animals filmed for television wildlife documentary series are denied their right to privacy, a leading U.K. academic claimed in a report that emerged Friday.

Dr. Brett Mills of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, southeastern England, analyzed the behind-the-scenes footage of the BBC documentary series "Nature's Great Events."

The series followed animals such as polar bears, African elephants and humpback whales during epic annual environmental events. Mills examined the way in which the animals were filmed and concluded that animals, like humans, have a basic right to privacy that the documentary filmmakers ignored by filming their most intimate moments.

He said that the show's producers only considered the mechanics of filming, using the latest equipment to capture previously unseen natural events, and did not take into account the ethics of broadcasting an animal mating, giving birth and dying.

Mills' report, published in the latest edition of Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, claimed that this is speciesism and that in order to make a successful wildlife documentary, filmmakers must inevitably deny many species the right to privacy.

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Rest at link.......

doc

[bijou]

Wildlife documentary makers are infringing animals' rights to privacy by filming their most private and intimate moments, according to a new study.

Footage of animals giving birth in their burrows or mating crosses an ethical line that film-makers should respect, according to Brett Mills, a lecturer in film studies at the University of East Anglia.

Mills compiled a report on animals' rights to privacy after reviewing scenes from the BBC's 2009 wildlife series "Nature's Great Events". Among the offending footage was film of a narwhal whale that appeared to have retreated from view beneath the Arctic ice sheet.

"Instead of thinking we'll leave it alone, film-makers decide the only solution is to develop new technology so they can film it," Mills said.

"We have an assumption that humans have some right to privacy, so why do we not assume that for other species, particularly when they are engaging in behaviour that suggests they don't want to be seen?"

In 2008 the BBC was inundated with complaints after Springwatch presenter Bill Oddie described an encounter between two beetles: "He crash-lands on top of a likely looking lady. There's a bit of luck! One thing's for sure: this boy is horny!"

Mills said filming such encounters with miniature cameras was a level of surveillance humans would most likely object to. "The key thing in most wildlife documentaries is filming those very private moments of mating or giving birth. Many of these activities, in the human realm, are considered deeply private, but with other species we don't recognise that," he said. Mills' report appears in the Journal of Media and Cultural Studies. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/29/wildlife-films-infringe-privacy

Words fail.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

East Anglia is turning into Moonbat Central.

[DefiantSix]

I'm guessing they wouldn't like hearing what I do when I enter the "pristine habitat" of animals... 

[vesta111]

I'm guessing they wouldn't like hearing what I do when I enter the "pristine habitat" of animals... 

This reminds me of the hoax pulled by some very wealthy and board people sometimes in the 1960's that started a Society for public decency that asked for donations to lobby for a law that farmers had to place pants on  male cows, horses
And short haired domestic short haired dogs.

For the next 25 or so years they received donations that they placed in the bank to earn interest. When they decided to end the Society, they returned the money to the donors explaining the joke.

I remember they appeared on a talk show, Merv Griffin , I believe and and when asked how much money they had been sent, replied over 2.5 Million.

Not surprising when I saw the ad for these little devises that are attached to a dogs tail that cover its brown eye.