Meet Cookie: Kept in a Cage and Called a ‘F*cking Whore’

PETA’s Out to Get Animals off Hollywood Sets and Bust Movie and TV Animal Suppliers

Just imagine the life Cookie should have experienced as a playful, intelligent cockatoo: flying for miles every day and spending most of her time foraging for nuts and berries in a huge, happy flock. These birds are social and monogamous, choosing one partner for life and raising their chicks together. But 60-year-old Cookie was denied all that. Confined alone to a barren cage for more than 23 hours a day, her psychological torment was so severe that she plucked her neck, chest, and legs bald. But despite her obvious distress, Cookie was treated with contempt at Atlanta Film Animals (AFA). She was called a “f*cking whore” and a “total bitch.”

Cookie wasn’t alone in her suffering. PETA’s undercover investigation into AFA, a company that supplies animals to the film, television, and advertising industries – which has included studios like Disney, Netflix, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros – also revealed the following:

• Cats were denied food so that they’d perform on cue to get something to eat.
• Dogs were warehoused in an unheated garage in near-freezing temperatures.
• Capuchin monkeys were kept in waste-strewn enclosures that went uncleaned for days.
• A pig suffering from a facial abscess was denied veterinary care.

What About Animal Acts at Radio City Music Hall or Your Local Church?

From Broadway to the midway to passion plays, situations for animals forced to serve as performers are frightening, uncomfortable, and often dangerous.

Even the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular – featuring the iconic Rockettes – exploits camels, sheep, and donkeys. The production contracts with outside animal exhibitors, including most recently one that supplies animals for cruel circus acts. PETA pal Alec Baldwin has appealed to the venue to stop forcing animals to participate, writing, “Reinventing the iconic show to be animal-free would bring it into the modern era and truly align it with the Christmas spirit. Please give this archaic practice a high kick out of your production and into the history books.”

When churches use animals in their live Nativity scenes, they leave them vulnerable to all sorts of dangers. Animals in such displays have been have attacked by dogs, sexually assaulted, and killed in traffic after making a break for it. If your church plans to hold a living Nativity scene, ask the minister or priest to reconsider.

The Curtain Is Falling on Cruel Displays, Thanks to PETA and You!

PETA is persuading businesses to axe animal entertainment. Universal Studios Hollywood shut down its Animal Actors show, which for years had used animals provided by Birds & Animals Unlimited. Our investigation into that notorious supplier found that animals were denied adequate veterinary care for illnesses and injuries, forced to live inside filthy enclosures, and denied food so that they’d be motivated to learn tricks. Avon, Ohio, Summer Festival host KevaWorks dumped the “Banana Derby” after learning from us that capuchin monkeys are terrified when strapped to dogs and forced to race in the cruel stunt. Ferndale, Michigan, banned exotic-animal displays and performances after PETA alerted officials to visitors’ complaints about reindeer who were used as party props at its Holiday Ice Festival, and businesses around the US have scrapped live-reindeer holiday displays.