‘Conservation Game’ raises questions
Documentary examines exotic animals' use on TV
If you have watched a morning news program or late-night talk show at any point during the past half-century or so, you will be familiar with exotic animal segments.
You know the drill: An animal expert, often but not always dressed in safarilike garb, comes onto the stage accompanied by lions, bears, primates and the occasional snow leopard. As pertinent facts about each species are rattled off, the animals interact – sometimes playfully, sometimes mischievously, occasionally dangerously – with the host.
Who among us hasn't oohed and aahed when watching at home?
A fascinating, troubling new documentary casts a critical eye on the backstories behind TV segments that most of us probably regarded, at worst, as harmless fun and, at best, as useful tools to promote animal conservation.
Exposing the underbelly of these TV appearances is Tim Harrison, a former police officer in Oakwood in Montgomery County who now runs a nonprofit group focused on educating children about interacting with wildlife.
As Harrison recounts in “The Conservation Game,” he was one of the millions who followed Marlin Perkins, Jim Fowler and, especially, Jack Hanna, the former director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium who became ubiquitous on “Late Night with David Letterman” and other programs.
“He just exploded ... and became the number one animal celebrity in the world,” Harrison says in the documentary.
“What was so cool about it was that he was from Ohio, he was from the Columbus Zoo, just down the road from where I lived,” Harrison says.
“The Conservation Game” – which opens in greater Columbus at the Gateway Film Center on Friday – recounts Harrison’s evolution from eager admirer of Hanna to fierce opponent of the inner workings of a world likely to be unfamiliar to most viewers.
Director Michael Webber’s documentary claims that many of TV’S socalled “ambassador animals” are procured from, and are returned to, what are described as backyard breeders, roadside zoos and even “exotic animal auctions.”
“A regular person can just buy themselves an endangered species, walk out of there without any paperwork whatsoever, just, ‘Here’s my tiger cub – off I go,’” Harrison says of one such auction in Mount Hope, in Holmes County.
At that auction, Harrison and a colleague say that they encountered a roadside zoo proprietor who said she was there to sell animals Hanna had featured during a recent TV appearance and to pick up additional animals for a future appearance.
From there, the documentary shadows Harrison as he attempts to pinpoint the whereabouts of specific big cats from TV; none appear to have found its way to accredited zoos or similar institutions, and many have simply gone off the grid, the film claims.
In a typical sequence, Harrison pulls aside animal expert Jarrod Miller while the two are surreptitiously filmed from afar. Harrison presents Miller with a printout of various big cats about which he is seeking answers. Miller is seen hemming and hawing without giving definitive answers about the cats’ current homes.
Similar scenes – all filmed from outside of the subjects’ view – play out as Harrison catches up with animal expert Dave Salmoni and, eventually, Hanna himself, who gives the impression that the big cats Harrison asks about are now at The Wilds. A title card informs us that The Wilds does not house big cats.
And, we see, after a big cat named Gus joined Hanna on “Good Morning America,” that same animal is on display at a bikers’ convention in a hotel lobby in Baltimore.
Although the documentary makes its case methodically, the “ambush”-style footage of Harrison rushing up to various animal personalities wears thin; here, the film plays as an ineffective copy of the documentaries of Michael Moore, which, wearyingly at times, use the same tactic.
Had they agreed to do so, sit-down interviews with the personalities Harrison confronts would have been preferable. That includes Hanna, who speaks for himself only in footage he is not aware is even being shot. (Hanna’s family announced in April that he had received a diagnosis of dementia and would no longer participate in public life.)
Similarly, a sequence that deposits
Harrison into the stands of a Massillon Tigers football game – one of the team’s live “Obie” tiger cub mascots is said to have been a veteran of earlier TV appearances, including one with Salmoni – is too much about Harrison, who draws antagonism from the crowd, and too little about the animal itself. (Massillon no longer uses live mascots.)
More compelling and less-sensationalistic are segments depicting Harrison’s support of the Big Cat Public Safety Act introduced in both chambers of Congress this year.
“The Conservation Game” has already made waves: The president of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, of which the Columbus Zoo is a member, said in a statement on Aug. 12 that, “The practices portrayed in the documentary attributed to some Columbus Zoo staff, if accurate, are not what we expect from a modern accredited zoo.”
The zoo said in July that it had severed relationships with wildlife vendors not in compliance with animal-care standards.
Despite its sometimes-sensationalistic approach, “The Conservation Game” does what the best documentaries should: it highlights an important topic and starts conversations.
tonguetteauthor2@aol.com