Should wildlife camera-men ever intervene?

As hard as it is to witness such events while filming, the camera crew must just do their job, and not risk their own safety by getting involved in an act of nature. I know this sounds harsh, but it is the only way to act in such circumstances. Many film crews witness far worse things, but fortunately they never get seen by the public in the finished programme.

It's hard to watch but no there should be no intervention. The world's problems have stemmed from human intervention. It upsets the natural balance of everything. In nature there is a chain and a balance and when humans mess that up and unbalance things the consequences are catastrophic. Death is inevitable with every living thing and although we all hope for a merciful exit, it cannot always be so. Nature is survival of the fittest to ensure the best breeding lines. If only us humans followed the same rules the world would be a better place. We should not keep alive those who have no quality of life left, either human or animal. It is more cruel to prolong the inevitable agony than to let nature take it's course.

the human thing to do is intervene (if they had the right training to approach a mother and her cub)

however entertainment and reality shows don't tell you much about the beauty/ evil of nature if a camera-man stepped in everytime something wasn't going right.

What bother's me is how nobody seems to consider seeing an animal killed a snuff film. I watched youtube's "Life in a day" and they had this one scene where workers put a gun to a cows head, she was trying to back away and they shot her right in the head. She ended up dying. The cow was alive at the beginning of the film and murdered by the end - that's a snuff film right there, it shouldn't make a difference if it was cow or human, it's a life... Sorry got a little off track there, my main point is they show some pretty gruesome animal deaths on television.

Nature in the wild is a case of life and death and the survival of the strongest therefore it should be left alone even when we see things that we find upsetting, the only excusable reason to interfere with this is if the cause of the situation is not natural but man made, for example an animal is caught in a trap, in this case and if it can be safely done the trap could be removed, however trapped animals are often to injured to survive for long in their environment and will quickly fall prey to other animals.

We too often view animals and wildlife with human emotions, these, although understandable, play no part in the natural order of things

Absolutely not, you have to let nature take its course or the documentary would be pointless; and also the crews safety is the producers' priority as Leopards are known to be very unpredictable let alone an upset mother.

that reminds me when i was watching one about 3 young brother Cheetahs that were fighting to survive as their mother got killed and it was sad to also watch one of the brother cheetahs being bitten by a Cobra and dying an hour later :(

no they shouldnt nature can be a cruel thing they would have risked there lives to interfere also