Media Statement: One Direction using chimpanzee from cited animal trainer in new music video

For Immediate Release:
October 23, 2014

PETA has been in touch with the band, and will be writing to them again today, to advise them that the animal trainer who supplied the chimpanzee for their latest video has been cited numerous times for shocking violations of the very minimal standards of the US Animal Welfare Act, including for failure to provide adequate veterinary care, locking chimpanzees and orang-utans in “night housing” (small cages) for up to 18 hours a day with no enrichment items, failure to supply adequate shelter from the elements, denying animals adequate space and failure to provide adequate ventilation, clean cages and proper feeding. In natural environments, chimpanzees build nests, forage for natural foods, make and use tools, groom each other and raise families, but in the entertainment industry, it is standard practice for chimpanzees to be torn from their mothers at birth and trained under the threat of punishment to perform unnatural tricks for human amusement, only to be discarded at roadside zoos just a few years later. PETA is asking that the boys immediately cut the scene with the chimpanzee and the other wild animals, pledge never to work with wild animals again and donate a percentage of the proceeds from the song to an organisation that rescues chimpanzees and cares for them properly.