How to Spot FAKE Animal Rescue Videos

Heartwarming animal rescue videos go viral on YouTube and social media, and many of them are fake. A marine biologist shares her secrets on how to spot fake animal videos.

00:00 - Did This Sea Otter Thank It's Rescuers?
02:42 - How to Spot Fake Animal Videos
04:35 - Are Barnacles Painful to Whales?
05:53 - Why Fake Animal Videos Are Bad
06:56 - Alarming Rise of Staged Animal Rescues

One of the first questions I ask when I see one of these stories is who posted the video? Is it from a trusted source? There are a lot of really incredible people and organizations out there rescuing animals and sharing their stories on social media. People like my friends at Ocean Conservation Namibia. There are also professional rescue centers like Cornish Seal Sanctuary, Oregon Coast Aquarium, and Monterey Bay Aquarium who rescue countless marine mammals every year. A lot of the staff at these facilities have social media channels, just like I do, and they post on a pretty regular basis.

Support the legitimate animal rescue organizations I mentioned:

Fake animal rescue videos are harmful. They tell stories that make it seem like humans are helping the animals when the truth is often the exact opposite. They also encourage people to engage in actions that can have serious consequences. Many of these feel good accounts pose as actual rescue centers and ask people for donations. Some of them actively market merchandise claiming the proceeds go to rescue stories like the ones seen in the fake videos. And it can be even worse. Some videos are actual cases of animal cruelty. I’m not going to share these videos, for obvious reasons, but there are social media accounts who stage videos where animals are intentionally exposed to life-threatening situations so that they can be 'rescued' by people posing as animal rescue groups or animal activists. “The creators of such videos exploit the emotions of animal lovers. They deceive people with the videos and get them to become subscribers/donors so that they can deceitfully get money.”

Cited Sources

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Additional Imagery
Ocean Conservation Namibia
Cornish Seal Sanctuary
Monterey Bay Aquarium
VanAqua
Oregon Coast Aquarium
NOAA

#kpassionate #fake #seaotter

[joshcarter-com]

Quick way to spot fakes: they usually talk about “a man” or “a woman, ” no specific names or places. If the narrator has no idea who’s in the video, it’s almost certainly a fake. Thank you for calling these out; I’m getting a TON of these in my feed recently.

[CookieChacho]

There are way too many of these AI-narrated animal videos with changing species, Disney-fication, giving animals human emotions etc... They're mass-produced click-bait crap. Thanks for helping to educate ✌🏻

[smellslikesouls]

another thing is the anthropomorphizing in the fake videos. “she panicking was looking around for something” “she cried tears of joy” animals emote WAYYY differently than humans, and actual animal rescuers know that

[ninjaantelope]

Yes! Thank you. The fake dog / cat rescues are just crazy horrible. Let alone the fake sea turtle rescues.

[annakonda]

I have been getting very friendly with the "Do Not Recommend Channel" button because of this and am glad other people have noticed it. The odious voice is a dead give-away, is also a clue.

[FluffyLea]

I'm so sick of seeing these staged animal rescue videos having millions of views! Thanks for your video!

[maggiematthews]

This video is a real eye-opener. The idea of animals being deliberately harmed in order to make a heartstring-tugging video is just repulsive.

[tricivenola]

That particular AI voice is a clue that the thing is fake. Also, phrases like "the cat came to the man..., " or "the girl saw the bird, the bird called to the girl..." etc. Thanks for this. I've gotten really turned off by these and I'm glad you're exposing them.

[natlefartsproductions]

I'm honestly very glad someone as connected to otters was able to debunk this weird ai video. I remember watching it and having it get on my nerves with how many different baby otters it showed, it just makes me uneasy. Good on you you took time to set the records straight!

[fhdywhjjfuudik]

This phenomenon infuriates me. Especially those suspect cat and dog rescue vids where it seems apparent that the guy filming the animals has just abused/ tortured that animal. The rescuer never shows their voice or face either.

[mimisheean]

Thank you for posting this. I’ve seen drugged kittens, cats buried alive, cats sealed into closets for so long they’ve gone crazy, abused dogs, abused horses, and many, many horrible things. Often the videos originate in places like China or Korea or Southeast Asia. I’ve even seen them shared on the Dodo, which was unbelievable. I try to report them but You Tube doesn’t seem too interested.

[Berus]

I love that you're doing this. LOVE IT. There are so many of these animal rescue "feel good" videos on YouTube, and some of them always ring false for me. Thanks for validating what some said was a "cynical nature" on my part. For me, what's cynical are people who exploit footage of animals in distress in ANY WAY for their own enrichment. It's monetized suffering, masquerading as virtue. Thanks for being a voice of truth and sincerity amid all this.

[Lazdinger]

I hate those fake ai-narrated video. YouTube is now replete with ai content farms trying to harvest easy views and it’s not just animal rescue videos, it’s science, education, explainer genres as well. As soon as I hear an fake voice I go to the three dots under the vid’s thumbnail and select “do not recommend channel”.

[judydavidson]

As someone who is involved in wildlife rehabilitation, you have my utmost respect for making this video. One of my personal "favourites" is "oh, hes so tame! No, hes not tame, hes terrified

[checkthyprivilege]

this is comforting and refreshing to hear, honestly for a while, i thought no one on the internet care about what's real anymore

[goodgrief]

THANK YOU! I see too many people commenting very naively “how wonderful that you saved this poor kitty!” in comments on videos where the influencer family very obviously placed their well fed family pet in peril to pretend to rescue it from rubble, burying it, and then pulling it out. They get thousands of likes and clicks and shares for this animal cruelty and nobody can do anything about it. Educating people is the only thing that can be done and I’m so grateful that that’s what you’re doing here! ❤

[edmondaggabao]

I have no idea if all the videos of the Dodo are legit, but after a while I kept thinking “why is there someone recording this, why is it perfectly in frame, etc.” I had to unfollow.

[Steve-rwed]

Some of these are so obvious. I didn't know people are intentionally hurting animals for rescue videos. Thanks for bringing this to light.

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I've reported several videos and channels like this on YouTube, and they never get removed or demonetized. Thank you for spreading awareness of this problem and educating people on how these animals should actually be treated.

[Primalxbeast]

Those turtle videos infuriated me. They were probably regluing the same poor turtles.
Thanks for giving OCN a callout. They've saved countless fur seals from an upleasant death.