Primetime’s “Outsiders”

While watching the news on ABC yesterday, I saw a commercial for Primetime’s  new series, "Outsiders." The ominous-sounding narrator said, "Americans living way outside the norm," and the visual showed Timothy Treadwell a.k.a. Grizzly Man, doing his thing with the grizzlies. As you may know, Treadwell was viciously attacked and eaten by at least one grizzly in 2003. Rent the movie for all the grisly details.

The other segment in the show was the mauling of St. James Davis by chimpanzees (but not the chimp, Moe, who was his pet/family member).

Neither Treadwell nor Davis can be considered Animal People, yet they create negative branding for true Animal People, which the media then latches onto and exploits as best they can.

The core tenet for people who really do want the best for nonhuman animals is this: leave them alone. It’s not sexy, it doesn’t make for great copy or even a decent headline, and some think it’s contradictory. Some people insist on getting involved in every aspect of the lives of animals, under the guise of trying to help them.

Let’s deconstruct "leave them alone:"

• No organized tours to remote places to follow Black Bears, or any other kind of animals (that just habituates the creatures to humans, and then you’re not far from a situation where an animal bites or scares a human, and the animal is promptly shot. See Bear Killed in Own Backyard).
• No breeding of animals for human purposes
• No buying, selling, and shipping of exotic animals
• No fighting of animals
• No racing of animals
• Spaying and neutering every cat and dog we can get our hands on–including pure breeds (click here for the Animal Person position on pure breeds).
• All of the obvious: no hunting, no fishing, no rodeos, no animal-based circuses, etc…

For anyone who is about to utter the word, "extreme," I have but one thought for you to consider. If you do not believe that nonhuman animals are mere resources–means to an end–for humans, then what is the justification for treating them that way at all?

"Americans living way outside the norm," for me, are Americans who realize that sentient beings all have a right to their own lives and to be free from suffering. But that wouldn’t make a good Primetime segment.