What is this so-called "Animal Planet"

I looked high and low and finally I was able to find it, an article written by someone who had very similar to the thoughts I had, "Animal Planet is no longer about animals". I found this article by Jen Davies while using some very specific language in a search engine. Jen tells it how it is, for the most part, in her article from 2014. She says that now Animal Planet is a channel that hosts reality shows where animals are used for entertainment instead of shows that depict animals in a light that makes us appreciate them for being animals. This is something I completely agree with and let me tell you why.

Animal Planet and a few other channels used to have great, educational television shows about animals that were interesting and made the audience want to continue to watch them, There were great presenters and wildlife enthusiasts such as Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, the Kratt brothers, and Jack Hanna who knew their material and were willing to do a variety of different things so that you could witness the majesty of wild creatures. Many of these shows that these hosts were on aired in the 1990's and early 2000's and a generation of children grew up on them. These shows presented animals in their native locations and made you realize how important they were. The respect for nature and want to protect it was absorbed by children who usually saw it as a neat kitty or pretty snake. These children still learned a valuable lesson that many could be taught today about respect for nature. These children grew up at the perfect time when serial documentaries such as "Planet Earth" and "The Blue Planet" were being released and they could understand them. Now nature documentaries and television shows aren't new by any means. "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" and the "Nature" documentaries were educating folks of a previous generation and teaching them the beauty of nature. Then something happened and equivalents of many of these programs are hard to find on any television channel be it for adults or children.

Animal Planet now is a shell of its former self. Instead of having programming that reflects its name Animal Planet would prefer to show reality shows about things that may be vaguely related to animals, like "Call of the Wildman" a show about an exterminator who removes animals with his bare hands and releases them and is a show that Jen and Mother Jones magazine claims is staged, to shows that have absolutely nothing to do with animals, "Insane Pools" a show about pools not animals. This is sad that a channel that once heralded itself as a place to learn about animals is now nothing like that at all. Now I understand that the channel has had some hiccups like "Whale Wars", a show that depicts the illegal but moderately well intended acts of a crew of sailors who want to stop whaling, and the legal battle that took place and lead to the captain to being labeled as an internationally wanted man The show was a t least about animals and their plight at the hands of some humans. Animal Planet also went and changed their motto in 2010 to "Surprisingly Human". This is another step away from their roots. They are trying to focus on the human aspect of everything and losing the what made them a great channel, the educational and awe-inspiring programs about the critters that inhabit the planet. What Animal Planet is doing disappoints me and is why I no longer watch anything on that channel except the occasional documentary about animals they show once in a blue moon.

I went looking for a suitable replacement for the old Animal Planet, but I couldn't really find one that functioned the exact same way. I do think that Nat Geo Wild is a decent replacement and I think they had the essence of the old Animal Planet back in their early days. They used to have a lot of programs about animals and how awesome they were and that was it. They have since changed a bit and lost some of that programming in favor of the increasingly popular veterinary television shows like "The Incredible Dr. Pol", "Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet", and "Dr. K's Exotic Animal ER". Personally I have enjoyed these shows and they do talk about animals, but they do not focus on nature and wildlife like other programs. Discovery has also lost its way. They no longer show as many cool documentaries about nature or space or amazing things, instead they show naked people running around a jungle with a camera crew. Since Discovery's loss of "MythBusters", one of the longest running science based television shows, it really makes me wonder what the state of educational television in the United States is and if people even care.

I believe that the generation who grew up on Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, Jack Hanna, "Zooboomafoo", and "Planet Earth" will turn out to be some of the greatest biologists, veterinarians, zookeepers, wildlife researchers, and naturalists this country has ever seen. I also fear that with the decrease in educational programming for children that the next generation may not learn to apprectiate nature and this could have dire consequences for our planet. Please go watch some educational shows about animals, look up "The Crocodile Hunter" episodes on YouTube, watch "Zooboomafoo" with your kids on Netflix, hunt through your TV guide and find "Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures" on NBC or CBS at 6 in the morning and DVR them like I did, or simply go to the library or movie rental place and pick up a copy of any nature documentary so that we can all start loving nature again.


One of my heroes and inspirations.