When naturalist Paul Rosolie wanted to focus attention on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, he decided he needed a stunt guaranteed to get people looking. So the staunch environmentalist offered himself as dinner to an anaconda - filming every moment.
The problem was, “Eaten Alive” didn’t quite live up to its billing. In pre-show hype, Rosolie had described being swallowed and spending an hour inside the snake.
But to the general disappointment of viewers, it turned out that a more accurate description of the outcome would have been “Squeezed Alive”, since Rosolie never actually made it inside the snake itself, which proved incapable of swallowing the naturalist’s helmet-encased head, never mind the rest of him.
The internet was not impressed with the show, which aired on the Discovery Channel on Sunday. “If you ever want to complain that #Ghosthunters doesn’t find enough ghosts – just watch #EatenAlive and know true disappointment,” tweeted viewer Amy Bruni, capturing the general mood.
Others tweeted that they had developed “trust issues” with Discovery Channel.
“Everybody on Earth knows that the rainforests are disappearing and most people can tell you how important they are, but still, not enough people are paying attention, not enough people realise this is such a problem,” he said before the show’s airing
The American activist said he was proud to take on the adventure, even though the prospect of dying was hard to swallow.
To avoid suffocating, experts had crafted Rosolie a specially designed carbon fiber suit, equipped with a breathing system -- as well as with cameras and a system to communicate.
“We didn’t know if this was going to work, if I was going to be eaten, but we made sure that if I did make it inside the snake, I wouldn’t suffocate,” Rosolie explained.
The next challenge was trying to find a snake in the Peruvian Amazon jungle.
“We spent 60 days out in the jungle, camping, hiking, looking through swamps every night,” Rosolie said.
Eventually, they found a female snake, which at, six meters long, fit the bill.
“When I went up to the snake, it didn’t try to eat me right away,” Rosolie recounted. “It tried to escape. And when I provoked it a little bit, and acted a little more like a predator, that’s when it turned around and defended itself.”
He said he was scared that something would go wrong, but at the same time,” I was very excited to do it.”
“You are going up against one of the greatest predators of the planet and doing something that no one has ever done before,” he said.
He said his team was careful not to harm the snake and that he was the only one in danger. “We didn’t force the snake to do anything, we didn’t ask from the snake anything out of the ordinary,” Rosolie said.
The anaconda is now doing well, he said.
But Rosolie has faced fierce criticism from animal rights groups, including from PETA, who said “the snake was tormented and suffered for the sake of ratings.”
Rosolie said he even received death threats. But he wasn’t fazed, saying the shock value is important to increase attention to his cause.
A fund linked to the show was set up to raise awareness and money to protect the Amazon and could also allow for more research of anacondas in their habitat.
After the US showing, “Eaten Alive” will air on December 10 in Finland, Denmark, Hungary, Poland and Sweden, and two days later in Australia, before being broadcast in other countries, including China and India.
Discovery said it expect at least three million viewers in the United States and a million others around the world.