Hollywood Animal Coordinator Fined for Welfare Act Violations

Disgraced Sidney Yost Permanently Barred From Supplying Animals for Film and Television Productions

For Immediate Release:
January 18, 2018

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Hollywood animal coordinator Sidney Yost—whose credits reportedly include Get Out, The Hunger Games, 12 Years a Slave, The Butler, and Ant-Man, among others—has been hit with $30,000 in fines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for more than 40 federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations in incidents going as far back as 2008. His exhibitor’s license was also permanently revoked, barring him from supplying animals to future productions.

“The authorities did the right thing by fining Sidney Yost and revoking his license, and now, Hollywood needs to step up and stop hiring this longtime abuser,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA campaigned against him for years and will continue to work just as hard against every animal handler who still profits from supplying terrified animals to film and television sets.”

The AWA violations include failing to provide animals with sufficient space, sanitary living conditions, and uncontaminated food and using physical abuse to handle wolves and other animals, including hitting a monkey, a lion, and tigers with sticks.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that Yost previously agreed to relinquish custody of four chimpanzees and cease working with great apes to settle a lawsuit concerning his alleged abuse of chimpanzees in his care in 2002 and 2003.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.