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Sept. 28, 2009 I always enjoyed the PBS nature series, Wild America. Marty Stouffer created and hosted this high quality wildlife show which ran from 1985-1997. Almost every episode would have scenes that would make the viewer wonder how Mr. Stouffer got that shot. A regular standard would be shots of newborn young in their den or nest. On one episode he let us in on his secret for getting this kind of action of film. He showed us how he filmed kingfisher nestlings. Kingfishers are small fish-eating birds that nest in holes they dig into muddy stream-side banks. Well, Mr. Stouffer took a shovel, dug down parallel to the nest, made a small hole next to the nest, and stuck his camera in there, facing the nestlings. It was all hard work, not some magical trick. His shows were quite accurate and noted for their educational value, and when it came to controversial subjects, he portrayed both sides of an issue and usually took a balanced viewpoint. The only possible exception was his negative opinion of the U.S. government's mistreatment of feral horses. Mr. Stouffer filmed many unforgettable scenes of animal behavior: a pronghorn mother saving its young from the jaws of a coyote, a cougar pursuing a bighorn sheep, a spotted skunk killing a much larger bull snake (a bloody scene my wife couldn't watch), a shrike killing and impaling a mouse, a grasshopper mouse squealing in victory after vanquishing its prey, and a male porcupine urinating on a female in order to get her ready for mating. Perhaps the most heart-rending scene was when he was releasing a grizzly bear he'd raised from a cub back into the wild. He was trying to teach the animal to fear man, so he set a trap that would hurt but not seriously injure the bear. I recently re-watched many episodes of Wild America on dvd and wondered why it was no longer on the air. The quality of this series far surpasses that of most of the nature shows found on Animal Planet, National Geographic, and Discover channels, and it at least equals the best of what these networks offer. I did some research and much to my surprise, I discovered that Mr. Stouffer was involved in a controversy. Apparently, to film an elk herd, he illegally cut a road through a national forest, and he admitted to illegally hunting and shooting an elk. Allegations of faking shots and animal cruelty also began to surface. An investigation showed that he faked scenes in 15 out of 110 episodes. In one he tethered a rabbit, allowing a slow-moving raccoon to kill it-- a scene I did find odd when I first saw it. PBS, obviously not thrilled with the controversy, canceled the series which was also becoming expensive to produce. Nevertheless, it's hard for me to imagine this mild mannered narrator as a bad boy.
Despite these errors in judgement, I think Mr. Stouffer deserves another chance. Animal Planet would do well to offer us a new version of the show with Mr. Stouffer once again behind the camera.
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