By Chad Love

Ever watch a nature program and wonder how the filmmakers managed to capture those awesome and allegedly authentic scenes? This is going to come as an absolute shock, but a lot of them were...wait for it...staged!

From this story on NPR: 
Wildlife documentaries come with the promise that what you're seeing and hearing is genuine—but that's not always the case, according to a new book by a veteran environmental filmmaker. In Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom, Chris Palmer exposes some of the dirty secrets behind nature documentaries, like manufactured sounds and staged animal fights. Palmer tells Weekend Edition host Liane Hansen that after 30 years in the business, he had become haunted by what he had seen and felt the need for transparency.

A mule deer who was either [A] hungry and a poor planner; or [B] despondent and just wanted to end it all, recently jumped off a cliff and into Lake Powell. Maybe he was trying to prove Santa and his Reindeer Only policy wrong...

From this story in the Desert News: 

A hungry mule deer on the cliffs of Lake Powell took to the air, then jumped into the water Saturday, before being returned to solid ground by officers from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. The four-by-four point buck was trapped in Moqui Canyon, about two or three miles north, or "up lake," of Bullfrog Marina, said Sean Spencer, a conservation officer who assisted in the rescue.