Exposing wildlife film-makers tricks of the trade

Fakery is sometimes inevitable, says Chris Palmer, the veteran wildlife film producer who is lifting the lid on his industry

You’ve made many wildlife films. What’s the most blatant trickery you’ve been involved in?

When you watch the IMAX film Wolves you think you’re seeing wild wolves as they roam freely across remote landscapes. In reality, we rented the wolves from a game farm in Montana and released them from cages just before we shot each scene. There was a warning in the credits but I doubt many people saw it. In fact, a lot of the supposedly wild animals you see on TV live in game farms, which charge photographers over $5000 to take an animal to a local beauty spot.

What other tricks do film-makers use?


One classic trick involves hiding jellybeans in carcasses. If you see a bear feeding on a dead elk in a film, you can be pretty sure that the bear was hired from a game farm and is looking for sweets hidden in the carcass by the film-makers.

What proportion of wildlife programmes contain staged or non-wild elements?

It’s hard to put a figure on it, but far more than most people realise. It’s virtually impossible to make a wildlife film without some fabrication, manipulation or audience deception. Staging – making something “natural” happen artificially – is a short cut used to film otherwise inaccessible events. David Attenborough’s BBC documentary Wildlife Special: Polar Bear showed a mother bear supposedly giving birth in the wild. He later admitted that the scene was shot in a zoo.

The sound in most wildlife films is not recorded live, as it’s too risky to get close enough. The sounds are usually added in post-production.

Is this fakery always justified?

Sadly, most wildlife film-makers don’t have the money or the time to hang around indefinitely in the wilderness waiting for wild animals to show up. To make dramatic, exciting footage they sometimes have to stage scenes or mildly harass wild animals. If the film carries a strong conservation message, then I think that’s OK. If it doesn’t, then I don’t think the manipulation and harassment are justifiable.

“Crocodile hunter” Steve Irwin was a controversial figure long before the accident that killed him. What’s your verdict?

Mixed. He inspired thousands of young people to revere reptiles, which is great. But he also taught a whole generation that it’s fine to jump wild animals, stress them out and get in their personal space. That’s not OK. We need to leave wild animals alone, not make money out of harassing them.

You’ve been in the industry for over 30 years. Why did you decide to spill the beans?

It’s high time that an insider stands up and says “Wait. What we’re doing is wrong and unethical.” I’m 63 years old, and my career is coming to an end, which is probably for the best as many people have turned against me since Shooting in the Wild appeared. The other day I got a letter from a film-maker who runs a game farm. He called me “the lowest kind of bottom feeder”. He is understandably angry. I am threatening his livelihood.