‘Food Lion’ Shoot With Live Lion Prompts PETA Protest

Small Cages, Abusive Training, and Other Cruelty Common for Big Cats Used in Commercials

For Immediate Release:
April 13, 2015

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Grocery store chain Food Lion is reportedly bringing a live lion to a commercial shoot at a residence in Van Nuys—and PETA is bringing a protest. Led by a costumed “lion” holding a sign that proclaims, “No, I Don’t Want to Be in Your Damn Ad,” members of PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—will gather outside the shoot on Tuesday and call on Food Lion to use stock footage, computer-generated imagery, animatronics, or other creative means that will spare lions the cruelty of being deprived of their natural environment and violently forced to obey their handlers.

Where:           5711 Colbath Ave. (near the intersection with Collins Street), Van Nuys

When:             Tuesday, April 14, 12 p.m.

“There’s nothing creative or amusing about dragging a captive lion onto a commercial set,” says PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders. “PETA is calling on Food Lion to act like a modern, kind company and leave wild animals out of its ads.”

Big cats used in the entertainment industry are typically taken away from their mothers shortly after birth and subjected to abusive training methods, including electric shocks and food deprivation—and, as documented by one investigator, even being dragged by chains and hit with metal food bowls and closed fists. The animals are typically confined to small cages and denied everything that is natural and important to them, and once they grow old and are no longer useful to their trainers, the animals are usually cast off and sent to seedy roadside zoos.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.