Idk I think if you're depicting any animal semi-seriously in media the least you can do for it is to try searching for some references in a natural setting. Especially in a medium like animation, referencing behavior is just as important as physiology. Sometimes the clearest photos of a species are in a very distressing context for the animal. Some people only know certain animals for how they look/behave under extreme stress. This is why I love camera trap footage so much as reference.
What I'm saying is if you're tasked with designing and animating an otter or a fox and your only videos referencing them in motion where captive pet videos I'm gonna be disappointed
You can tell when someone's put thought and effort into their depiction of a species, no amount of rigging or polygons can create believable animal behaviour*. Like to me the aristocats is a really cute movie because despite being anthropomorphized the kittens still behave like cute kittens!!
It's hard to find modern animation with great animal acting similar to Kahl's. It's either fully anthro movement or behaves like a dog, and I do think this oversaturation has some negative effects on our relationship with animals. Our society has become so based in narratives and stories and so many of our stories have misleading or fabricated beliefs about animals and how they behave
*except for that guy who made a program in C++ to simulate starling murmurations
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youtu(dot)be(slash)g-7cLXyMp8E?si=OQ_6WDtl_dnMj9DP
Thoughts on this video on the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and also the article that it cures which claims the Yellowstone narrative is factually inaccurate?
BAHAHAHA I am fucking CACKLING.
Okay so this video:
was posted in late 2020 and BOY HOWDY is it a wild ride. Because I need a distraction and am feeling particularly petty right now I'll see if I can break down the video and it's... um... "facts".
Before I start though the dudes YouTube is chock full of extreme vegan takes so I wouldn't say he's the top tier candidate for good sources lol.
"Introduction"
The beginning is meh. Y'know the usual thing some Youtubers do with the whole "is this really true???" thing with unreasonable amount of suspicion? yeah. He pretty much makes comments on how maybe the reintroduction of wolves into YNP wasn't the "incredible success story that it was made out to be." Which I feel like the, y'know, the many hundreds of research papers on the wolf reintroduction into YNP and the massive benefits it's created kinda contradicts? but I mean what do I know.
"Yellowstone narrative is misleading"
So this part opens up with this video (which I don't feel like watching rn if I were being honest so I'll save that for later) that blew up a bit ago regarding how wolves change rivers, and the claim that it was misleading, untrue, etc. The youtuber (who we shall call Hancock because "Youtuber" will get boring) uses this source to stake the claim that the positive impact wolves have had on rivers in YNP isn't true.
As we would know if we actually did research and didn't talk out of our ass, wolves didn't directly affect the rivers just by hunting elk, but beavers as well. Aspen and willow are, surprise surprise! a favorite food of beavers. Prior to wolf reintroduction riverbeds and waterways in YNP were in terrible shape, mainly due to erosion and lack of support from water loving plants, which are... tada! willow and aspen! Beavers and elk chowed down on these plants in huge amounts due to their numbers being so vastly out of control due to lack of predators. So when wolves came around and started hunting the plentiful beavers and elk, the willow and aspen were basically like "oh shit! we aren't being eaten to the point where we're all dying!! lets grow more!!" and in turn the more willow and aspen = more footing for the soil along waterbeds which means the rivers were saved. Some of this was mentioned in the article that was linked but wasn't mentioned by Hancock so idk what's up with that.
To sum it up, wolves made an impact! And it's silly to just write that off completely!! I think my issue with this part is that Hancock completely writes wolves impact on the environment off, which is frankly ridiculous. The original video may have overstated it a bit, but it's not like it doesn't exist.
"The balance of ecosystems"
Hancock then talks about the complexity of the YNP food chain (kinda), and how some people feel the need to restore the balance in nature if we humans fuck it up which?? like yeah?? we should?? He goes into a schpeel about values or whatever and if we value certain ecosystems over others??? Idk I was NOT tracking.
He mentions his thoughts on "which balance is best for the animals that live there". Goes on slight anthropomorphizing tangent then dives into the next part...:
"Ecology of fear"
Ah, lads, we are back in biology class aren't we. Except this time we are anthropomorphizing the hell out of everything! "The deer are afraid of being eaten alive, so afraid that they sometimes choose to eat less..."
Okay, did anyone tell this guy that the amount of food the herbivores (ungulates namely) before wolves were reintroduced was literally killing everything? Without wolves to balance the prey populations out they overgrazed, populations skyrocketed and so did disease.
The rest of this is a tangent, so I'll skip over it.
"Wolves suffered too"
Hancock cites the outbreaks of canine distemper disease that have occurred in YNP since reintroduction. This is a bit of a mute point, since canine distemper can fuck any canine population up whether it's a brand new reintroduced group of wolves or they've been there for decades.
Also, can we note how he talks about canine distemper then shows a wolf with mange?? hmmmm.
"Numbers of animals vs welfare"
Dude talks about random bullshit regarding animal rights. Loooooots of emotional heartstrings attempting to be pulled. He is 10000% coming from one of those anti-predator perspectives. Biiiig yikes.
"It's too complex (human health analogy)"
This section was basically mansplaining but with vegans lol.
"The choice we have"
He brings in wild animal contraception?????? I???? Girl what. I mean it's a thing yeah but I did not expect that to be where he was going.
Hancock talks about "one of the cruelest, and unfortunately most romanticized and thus most prevalent methods of population control" AKA reintroducing predators. Hmmmm it's almost like he didn't read about the mass amount of ungulates and other prey animals dying off in YNP when winter came (prior to reintroduction) and there wasn't enough food to sustain them all, subjecting them to excruciating deaths and long drawn out starvation and disease.
Hancock then goes onto how animals eat each other alive, which like, yeah, they do. AND THEN he talks about "wild animal suffrage" which, frankly I refuse to google. Blah blah blah he's anti-hunting who would've thought.
"we didn't do it for the animals"
Okay this actually has some value to it. Hancock talks about how wolves weren't reintroduced for their benefit, or anyone else, but only for people and tourism. This is both right and wrong.
I'm sure that all the biologists and hard working members on the reintroduction team would disagree that it wasn't done for the animals, but who knows. Anyway, the point that tourism would rake in a lot of cash for the state was also something that helped wolves get reintroduced, since we know many government officials weren't in it for the animals. So yeah, sort of true, but not really.
Hancock goes on about what animals are concerned about, even adding a little wolf with a thought bubble (which tbh, I'm sure if wolves knew about the technicalities of biodiversity they would love it, since it usually means a better quality of life). More anthropomorphizing and entitled vegan guilt tripping.
At this point I stopped watching, since it's already been roughly an hour, and although I could do this all day, I have to work later.
To answer your question anon, this video is very poorly put together and I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. There is little to no research done prior to creating it, and the creator talks from a animal rights activist point of view, which is never helpful.
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