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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to find wildlife programmes too distressing to watch?

35 replies

sparksthefirst · 03/01/2017 16:24

Just that really. Can't bear them. I am a huge animal lover and i just find watching animals eating other ones really distressing. I absolutely understand nature is nature and animals have to eat but I just don't want to see it (I wouldn't want to watch a programme about labour filmed down the business end eirther,,for example!) I wish I wasn't this way and I don't want my two sons missing out on programmes like planet earth etc when they are a bit older, so I'll just have to leave room!! I sometimes think the Attenborough programmes are overly graphic. Anyone else with me?! Just interested really

OP posts:
MissMatchedSocks · 03/01/2017 16:28

Oh, I love these types of programmes and find them so interesting but YANBU to feel how you feel either.

Famalam13 · 03/01/2017 16:30

YANBU OP, I had to stop watching David Attenborough when one episode left me crying for an hour :(

Jellybean83 · 03/01/2017 16:35

I'm the same, it didn't used to bother me as I just saw it as the whole food chain survival of the fittest kind of thing, but as I've got older it genuinely does make me sad.

I still watch and DS does find it a bit sad but he completely gets why animals have to hunt. The only one he has actually cried at was a documentary about puppy farms and it showed you some little dead puppies that had been left at the side of the road, he was distraught and with hindsight it was a bit too mature viewing for him. We just stick to David Attenborough now.

englishmummyinwales · 03/01/2017 16:36

I'm exactly the same and keep apologising about it as people keep telling me how amazing Planet Earth is and how I "must" watch it. If I do, I will lie awake for night after night fretting over all the deaths and terror.

I'm a vegetarian so feel it's not hypocritical of me to be like this, although of course I understand that it's the law of nature and must happen.

Shame as I am a huge animal fan and find other aspects of such programmes very interesting. But I've learned not to watch them and probably never will.

Footinmouthasusual · 03/01/2017 16:36

Hate them if it's not death it's sex. Me and dds can't bear to watch.

MrsJayy · 03/01/2017 16:39

Dd can't watch them either she screamed argghhh nature at a recent 1 that was on. Nature is brutal op yanbu I enjoy them though a lion has to eat

SumThucker · 03/01/2017 16:42

I can't watch them either, they upset me.

Salmotrutta · 03/01/2017 16:49

I get more upset when they show animals being adversely affected by human pollution.

E.g the poor baby turtles being confused by the lights from the town in Planet Earth.

MrsJayy · 03/01/2017 16:53

I cried at a baby gorilla being. Orphaned on a programme once I had to switch it off poor little mite was toddling about on its own

chemenger · 03/01/2017 16:54

I can't watch them at all. It seems to me that the makers revel in drama and death too much. that and false jeopardy, "will the baby elephant make it through the African night with the lions circling....", the cuter the animal that can be portrayed on the edge of death the better. I know nature depends on animals eating each other but it seems to me that this is now portrayed in unnecessarily anthropomorphic and emotional ways.

NancyDonahue · 03/01/2017 16:55

But animals would starve to death. There was the polar bear mum who was starving and her baby needed her milk. I was happy to see her get the kill she needed.

I agree with salmotrutta, seeing animals suffer due to humans is more distressing. Elephants killed for tusks, marine life choking on plastic etc

Original poster
sparksthefirst · 03/01/2017 16:57

Phew not just me then!! English mummy we are very similar I think..! I'm also veggie and also think I'd enjoy most aspects just not the death scenes. Nature is very very cruel. Now as a parent myself it's even worse seeing animal babies being picked off. Wish there was an edited version taking out the violence! I do wonder how much prey animals suffer...not so much in pain but rather are they aware of death...hmm, again I could spend hours worrying about it. Hence why I just don't watch!

OP posts:
Katedotness1963 · 03/01/2017 16:57

I used to love wildlife programmes, then one night we watched one about emus, I think, (it's been over 25 years now). Anyway, the young birds had to trek across a dessert, hundreds of them started off and at the end there was about a dozen that made it, I bawled my eyes out. We stopped watching them after that. I feel quite teary now remembering...

Oblomov16 · 03/01/2017 17:01

To be fair, Attenborough rarely shows this, he implies it, and often they get away. I don't think that's right, I think they should show it more. It's part of the natural cycle of the food chain.

cherrycrumblecustard · 03/01/2017 17:03

YANBU. I got really upset at seeing a seal killed by an orca - traumatised me for weeks! Don't mind too much if the prey is killed quickly: it's the long drawn out killings that are awful (as beautiful as they are, sparrow Hawks kill their prey in a harrowing way!)

Oblo I think the prey usually does get away.

CaraAspen · 03/01/2017 17:04

OP, I agree.

BestZebbie · 03/01/2017 17:05

My biological clock has screwed up nature documentaries for me - I have all the Attenborough series and used to binge-watch them whilst knitting, but then around the time of TTC I saw one about nesting terns that made me really sad for no particular reason (possibly just that the terns all had baaaabiiiies), and since being pregnant/having a baby I just cannot deal with any kind of young animal in Peril without getting massively stressed myself.
I'm hoping that when DC is a teenager I will be able to catch up on the current crop of documentaries. :-p

Temporaryname137 · 03/01/2017 17:06

YANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNBU

I have to turn them off, can't bear to watch things being eaten by other things, even though I know it's nature! I was horrified when a friend went on safari for her honeymoon and her husband was gutted that they didn't see a kill Hmm

MuttsNutts · 03/01/2017 17:22

Planet Earth is about the only one I can bear to watch because, as Oblomov says, graphic scenes are rarely shown. Having said that, I still fret over them (turtles confused by light polution, poor little piglets taken by a leopard, buffalo attacked by lions, iguana preyed on by snakes...ok, maybe they aren't so rare!)

I still remember from, must be 30 years ago now, a programme that showed a male hippo killing a baby Sad and I have definitely got worse as
I've got older.

And don't get me started on anything to do with pets being abused/neglected/abandoned - at least animals in the wild kill for survival, pets rely on us for everything so mindless cruelty just makes me feel sick to my stomach. If I make the mistake of clicking on a news article that involves cruelty to animals, it can stay with me for days/weeks.

I would love to watch Supervet - I know he is amazing but can't bear to see the sad stories along with the happy ones.

MrsJayy · 03/01/2017 17:27

Supervet annoys and upsets me I think some of the pets need pts as a kindness he take s it to far

Marylou2 · 03/01/2017 17:36

YANBU. I can't watch them and if DH tells me again that it's the way of the world he will be the next animal to perish . Love Secret life of the Zoo though.

MuttsNutts · 03/01/2017 17:39

MrsJ - I'm sure you are right Sad

And I haven't even seen the gorilla programme you mentioned but I'm fretting about the poor little orphan as well now!

Yamadori · 03/01/2017 17:49

Well into middle-age here and I've been an avid watcher of natural history programmes for the best part of 50 years.

I can't bear to watch them any more.

There always used to be scenes in documentaries that were red in tooth and claw, but usually brief, and from a distance. Nature isn't all cute and fluffy, and many creatures come to a sudden (and often brutal) end - we know that. Those scenes are acceptable and necessary and part of the circle of life.

What I don't want to watch is death in sickening and gratuitous high-definition slow-motion blood-spattered close-up. I don't want to watch newborn animals being torn limb from limb before they've even had a chance to dry off, thank you very much.

GreenTureen · 03/01/2017 17:52

I'm a huge animal lover but it doesn't bother me, even the heartwrenching scenes of newborn animals being killed.

I do get a brief 'aww poor thing' feeling but that's it because I know it 'has' to happen iyswim.

Anyway, yanbu op.

JustSpeakSense · 03/01/2017 17:53

I feel exactly the same way, it breaks my heart to see the suffering. I thought I was the only one who leaves the room when a baby animal is being hunted, or in distress etc. My DH finds it all fascinating as 'nature is cruel' but I think these documentaries are edited to show the very worst of it Sad