Looking behind a fluffy facade

 Wildlife documentaries will one day be used as archival evidence that certain animal species did, in fact,  once roam the earth freely. There has been some fantastic footage made of wildlife in their natural habitat over the years which has given the general public a false sense of security that wildlife is flourishing, and that natural habitat is abundant around the globe. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that most of the natural wildlife footage captured on film are years in the making. These documentaries give the general population the impression that nothing needs to be done to protect animal species in their natural habitat because they appear on film to be surviving well enough in the wild without our help. The fact is that natural habitat is shrinking, like the polar icecaps, at an alarming rate and the wilderness that remains in the world requires our immediate protection. While it is important that we record animal behavior in the wild it is absolutely imperative that the mass media portrays what is really happening behind the captivating scenes that we all enjoy in the comfort of our lounge rooms. Animal species are endangered to the point of extinction and if we don’t act right now documentaries will be the only testimony that wild animals were once a major part of our environment. Koalas have now been classified as functionally extinct in Australia with only 80,000 remaining in the wild.