Major Hollywood Animal Supplier’s Animal Mistreatment Exposed by PETA Investigation
For Immediate Release:
February 29, 2024
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Following the Season Two premiere of ABC’s Will Trent, PETA is releasing a damning undercover investigation into the show’s animal supplier, Atlanta Film Animals—a branch of notorious Hollywood, California–based supplier Birds & Animals Unlimited (BAU) that has provided animals for CBS, Disney, Netflix, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros productions and assures them of quality care—and whose trainers’ credits include Cruella, Lady and the Tramp, Where the Crawdads Sing, and Strays. The video reveals workers warehoused animals in cold, barren cages; withheld food from them to make them compliant; and denied sick animals veterinary care.
A worker was recorded admitting that the company restricted food for cats used for Will Trent—including at least one of whom appeared in the Season Two premiere—explaining that if they aren’t “hungry,” they’re “not gonna work.” Another worker admitted that trainers “basically starve” birds. A 60-year-old cockatoo named Cookie—who was kept confined to a barren cage with nothing to do and often with only a single toy—plucked her feathers out due to anxiety and was called a “f*cking whore” and a “bitch” by a worker. The same staffer admitted to punishing another cockatoo by leaving his food within sight but out of reach. The two birds were caged alone for more than 23 hours a day and only allowed to interact for a few minutes while staff cleaned the cages.
PETA’s investigator also documented that pigs were denied veterinary care for a painful abscess and overgrown hooves that made it difficult to simply walk and that chickens with scaly, swollen, and bloody legs and feet were also denied adequate care, despite a worker admitting that the birds had “leg mites.” Monkeys who were held in waste-strewn enclosures had no access to water for several days after pipes froze and drank voraciously when occasionally provided with it. An old, ailing dog with heart failure (who was apparently used in Strays) was kept in an unheated garage in which temperatures dropped to approximately 35 degrees, and other dogs were left outside in 14-degree weather. A cat was kept routinely crated all day, sometimes with a filthy litterbox, and pigs were fed moldy, putrid food, which was apparently also eaten by rats.
“Any production that partners with an abusive operation whose workers cage vulnerable animals, practice food deprivation, and yell and swear at them should be blacklisted by viewers, reviewers, and the entire Hollywood machine,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “In this day and age of CGI, visual effects, and other 100% humane forms of technology, PETA urges the entertainment industry to think hard before hiring Atlanta Film Animals or any other cruel animal supplier.”
As a 2017 PETA investigation revealed, BAU has a history of denying animals veterinary care, confining them to filthy enclosures, and restricting their food during “training.” Following the exposé, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited BAU for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act—but clearly, the same type of issues exist at this branch.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
