Swallowed Alive! Has reality tv reached a new low?

You might think that the picture above shows a man who loves and appreciates snakes, yet Paul Rosolie is actually face to face with the snake that he expects to eat him.
Paul Rosolie is a documentary film maker from southern Peru who has previously won a award from the United Nations Forum on Forests for a short film called Unseen Forests in 2013. Now though he plans to be eaten alive by an anaconda Eunectes murinus, by wearing a snake proof suit and then forcing the snake to release him. Not much more information is provided regarding the purposed documentary which is due to be aired on the American Discovery Channel on the 7th of December and there is always the chance that this could be a publicity stunt based hoax but if the show is due to go ahead it will create waves of anger within the herpetology (reptile) field and animal lovers worldwide whilst demonstrating a new low in both scaremongering and non educational shows which now dominate channels that are meant to be educational.

This documentary holds no educational value as we already know about the workings of the snake digestive system in much detail and it's this knowledge that demonstrates exactly why this procedure will be harmful to the snake. Anacondas are constrictors and therefore rely on killing their prey by slowly squeezing them reducing the ability for the lungs to expand and by increasing pressure on the heart; obviously this can not happen in this situation which means that the anaconda most likely will have to be force fed the man. Now in some instances in captivity where a snake has not fed and is physically deteriorating as a result force feeding is often undertaken as a last resort, this process is not only stressful for the snake as it is an unnatural position to be placed in but has the potential to harm or even kill the snake if not performed correctly with such an over sized meal; this is because in order to consume prey bigger then itself the snake has a specialized breathing tube which it positions over a meal during feeding allowing it to be able to continue breathing. The body suit as shown in the picture above appears to have many areas that protrude outwards which will make it more difficult for the snake to swallow and could potentially damage the digestive tract of the snake especially if Paul moves whilst inside the snake.

Note: The fleshy tube is the breathing tube or glottis.

Now even if they managed to get the anaconda to swallow Paul whole they then have the next problem of getting him back out; now we can not just let nature take its course as the snake proof suit will prevent the natural breakdown of such a large meal preventing him from being passed out in the traditional way as I think we all can agree that there is no way a fully grown adult man will ever pass through a snakes cloaca. This leaves just two options regurgitation or surgical removal both of which are extremely harmful/stressful to the snake. Regurgitation within snakes is a difficult and stressful process in which undigested food from the esophagus not stomach is brought back up, with anacondas it places even more stress on the snakes body as they loose precious bodily fluids which can not easily be replaced. Surgical removal will require first anesthetizing the snake which carries its own risks and then cutting a hole wide enough in the snake for Paul to be removed which could cause substantial damage to the snakes body or be too large to be stitched back together ultimately resulting in the snakes death.

Is entertainment really worth the suffering of such an amazing animal which has adapted of thousands of years to be a amazingly efficient hunter, I most certainly do not think so, what do you guys think? As always feel free to leave your comments below.