The Fish People Are Mad At Jeep

Photo: Jeep Not Pictured: 2018 Jeep Wrangler Fish Stompin’ Edition

Jeep, which is a car company, ran an ad during the Super Bowl which showed one of its Jeeps driving across a stream. Now, the fish people are mad. Really mad.

Chris Wood, the CEO of Trout Unlimited, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation aquatic habitats, is not happy with a Jeep Wrangler commercial titled “The Anti-Manifesto.” He says that the Wrangler crossed the river improperly in a way that could harm fish and wildlife, according to a story in the Reno Gazette Journal:

The ad, which Jeep called “Anti-Manifesto,” came with a tiny disclaimer stating it was shot in a manmade water feature.
But Wood said it’s damaging nonetheless because many of the more than 103 million people who watched the game likely didn’t see the disclaimer. What they saw was a template for off-highway driving that’s bad news for fish, wildlife and people who enjoy streams and rivers, he said.
“They drove right up the middle of the stream, they effectively reamed the stream and glorified it,” Wood said. “It is about the worst thing you can do to a stream.”

We’re of the opinion that glorifying nature and making it appear to be Cool and Good, which it is, was a positive thing. But maybe we’re misunderstanding the words here.

A disclaimer on the video read: “This video was filmed on a man-made lake and man-made waterfall. The video was filmed on private land in the Southwest and the water does not flow to another natural body of water. The waterfall was also man-made for purposes of filming.” None of Wood’s precious fish children occupied the the Jeep river but he wasn’t having it.

Wood was a Jeep owner in the past. He used his CJ7 to go up and down trails in Vermont and he never killed any fish. In a letter to Sergio Marchionne, Wood said that the ad was irresponsible, and that fording across a river is fine but driving directly up a stream bad was not as fine and maybe Jeep should know that.

We have reached out to Jeep for comment on Wood’s comments and whether or not they want the 2018 Wrangler to kill all the fish in the world but they have not responded yet. We will update this post if we hear back.

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