Ad Blitz Targets CBS Series ‘Zoo’ for Live-Animal Exploitation
PETA Campaign in Top U.S. Newspapers Calls On Network to Swap Captive Animals for CGI
For Immediate Release:
June 21, 2016
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Handcuffed with strips of film, a computer-generated chimpanzee appears today in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal in a PETA ad, available here, that proclaims, “Some Shows Hold More Than an Audience Captive. CBS: Use CGI to Free All Animals From ‘Zoo.’”
The campaign comes just days in advance of the second-season premiere of the CBS series, which moved forward with plans to use big cats—even though executives met with PETA and learned that wild animals used on TV shows are torn away from their mothers, often beaten during training, and locked inside tiny cages. Zoo is also reportedly planning to use wolves, reindeer, horses, and buffalo.
“If Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book can create entire realistic animal kingdoms with CGI, then CBS can clearly make its show without exploiting any live animals,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA is calling on the network to switch entirely to affordable, accessible, humane, and versatile technology—and stop using animals who are caged, whipped, and denied everything that’s natural and important to them.”
Last season, Zoo used big cats, a bear, wolves, and two baboons, among many other animals. It also employed Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife—Martin is one of the only trainers who still uses chimpanzees, and his many violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act include locking apes in barren cages for up to 18 hours a day.
CBS dropped plans to use infamous trainer Michael Hackenberger only after PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—alerted producers that he had been caught on cameramercilessly whipping a tiger. Hackenberger has since been charged with five counts of cruelty to animals.
For more information, please visit AnimalsInFilmAndTV.com.
