Yahoo Movies Peta files complaint against Hollywood's leading animal talent agency
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – better known as Peta – has filed an official complaint to the US Department of Agriculture after a sting operation on Hollywood’s leading animal talent agency.
It’s alleging that Birds & Animals Unlimited has mistreated animals and also falsified records.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, ‘disturbing conditions’ were found by Peta using a whistle-blower who had access to the company’s five-acre facility an hour outside Hollywood last year.
The company provides animals to shows like ‘Game of Thrones’, through to the ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Night At The Museum’ series, ‘We Bought A Zoo’ and ‘Anchorman’.
With accompanying pictures and video evidence, the complaint reported ‘bloody, raw lesions on the side of a pig featured in the movie ‘College Road Trip’, and accused the company of depriving other animals including dogs, cats and goats of food for training purposes.
It also claimed dogs were left outside overnight while temperatures plummeted, and that birds of prey – including Crash, an owl which appeared in the ‘Harry Potter’ films – were left in enclosures that remained uncleaned for weeks at a time.
Meanwhile, a kangaroo called Lenny died after he was unable to eat because of a broken jaw.
“This isn’t just one potentially explainable case of mistreatment or some rogue employee we’ve found,” said Lisa Lange from Peta. “This is how Birds & Animals is operating.”
It also claims the company had ‘fraudulently’ adopted dogs
In response, Birds & Animals Unlimited called the claims ‘fiction’.
“[The exposé] does a fabulous job of making PETA’s point of animals in the worst possible condition, mistreated, neglected, abused, but the truth is that, as presented, PETA’s images and accompanying text are misleading,” it said in a statement.
“The truth about these animals (and all animals at Birds & Animals) is that they are under constant – years’ long – veterinary care, are treated with love and respect, compassion, kindness and all appropriate medical attention even where the more expedient (or financially prudent) approach would be to do otherwise.”
The American Human Society, which is behind the accreditation given to movie makers allowing them to use the ‘no animals were harmed’ phrase in their credits, has said that Birds & Animals Unlimited should ‘agree to an independent review of their facilities performed by qualified veterinary professionals’.
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