This screener was sent to us by Aquavision TV Productions, the sister company of Lion Mountain Media.
The only edits we made to the footage were:
• Removing the slow motion so the runtime matches the audio
• Increasing the audio volume
No other changes were made.
The camera is mounted on a motorised slider — equipment that requires deliberate setup and positioning. That immediately raises questions about whether this was a spontaneous wild encounter or a controlled setup.
The mouse does not appear to be wild. It shows no meaningful flight response and instead approaches the snake. A free-ranging rodent encountering a predator at close range would typically exhibit immediate escape behaviour.
The audio is particularly telling.
One crew member can be heard asking:
“Did he strike it?”
Another responds:
“He smacked it!”
The rest of the dialogue is largely unintelligible, but the exchange clearly indicates the crew was monitoring the moment closely and reacting to the strike.
If this were a genuine wild predation event, how was the crew already positioned with a slider? Why are they verbally confirming the strike in real time?
This is not about whether snakes eat mice. They do. The issue is presenting what appears to be a controlled feeding scenario as a natural, wild predation sequence.
Staging live predation for dramatic wildlife footage:
• Misleads audiences
• Risks injury to the snake
• Can result in prolonged suffering for the rodent
• Raises serious ethical and legal concerns under South African animal welfare legislation
Wildlife filmmaking relies on trust and transparency. If a scene is constructed, viewers deserve to know.
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