Academy Award-winning actor Anjelica Huston can't stand cruelty to animals. "I simply won't go on a set if I see an animal being abused", she told PETA US Senior Vice President Dan Mathews on the set of her latest project – a video for PETA US about the use of great apes in entertainment.
In the video – which PETA US is sending to Hollywood film and TV producers and directors and to advertising agencies – Anjelica urges people in the entertainment industry not to use great apes in their work. She describes how newborn chimpanzees and orang-utans are taken away from their highly protective mothers and are often beaten with fists and kicked in the head during terrifying training sessions.
"It's a sad story that starts when the animals are babies, when they are torn away from their mothers and forced to depend upon human trainers", says Anjelica. "Great-ape mothers are fiercely protective of their newborns, which means that they must be tricked, sedated or forcibly restrained when their infants are pulled from their arms. This cruel practice leaves lifelong emotional scars on both the mothers – who go into a deep depression – and the babies." Read more about the facts.
No Retirement for Ape 'Actors'
By age 8, young chimpanzees used for entertainment have grown too strong to be handled and are usually discarded, often at dismal roadside zoos or pseudo-sanctuaries. There, they languish for decades – chimpanzees can live to age 60 – in barren cages or dank, depressing concrete cells. At a pseudo-sanctuary PETA US investigated, a chimpanzee who had reportedly been used in The Planet of the Apes was found living in an underground cement pit that resembled a dungeon and was strewn with rotten food and faeces.
"Chimpanzees and orang-utans belong in rain forests, where they can build nests, forage for natural foods, make and use tools, groom each other and raise families", says Anjelica. "Using great apes in TV, movies and advertising - causes a lifetime of suffering."
Watch Anjelica's video interview with PETA US on PETA Europe's blog, Fish & Chimps.
Join Anjelica and help great apes today by pledging never to support films or television shows with chimpanzees or orang-utans.
