What Do Animal ‘Actors’ in Hollywood Endure Off Set?
A PETA undercover investigation into Atlanta Film Animals—a Georgia-based business that trains and provides animals for Hollywood film, TV, and advertising industries—has uncovered jaw-dropping misery. Behind the scenes, workers used out-of-touch training methods, denied cats and other animals food, deprived elderly pigs of veterinary care, and warehoused dogs in cold, barren kennels. 😨🐈🐖🐕
‘She’s a Total B*tch.’
Along with using other disrespectful language 🙄, that’s how a worker at Atlanta Film Animals referred to Cookie, a 60-year-old cockatoo who had plucked her chest bald due to severe anxiety and the stress of near-constant confinement. 😰
In nature, cockatoos fly many miles a day and spend most of their time foraging for berries, seeds, and nuts with their flock—but this company denied Cookie the opportunity to fly, socialize freely, or enjoy any semblance of a natural life. Additionally, a worker claimed to have punished a cockatoo named Sherlock by leaving the bird’s food within sight—but out of reach—for hours. 😢
If ‘You’re Not Hungry, You’re Not Gonna Work’
An Atlanta Film Animals worker said that the business restricted food for cats named Barnaby and Zeppelin while training them for the TV show Will Trent. She explained this cruelty by stating that if the two cats weren’t “hungry,” they were “not gonna work.” 😭 She added that trainers wouldn’t feed dogs in the morning if they planned to train them that day “because you want them to want something.” 😑 Trainers were obsessed with keeping animals—even skunks—at the “right” weight so they’d be hungry enough to perform for food. 🦨😔
Dogs Left Out in the Cold, Cats Kept Crated
A 13-year-old dog named Frankie—who was apparently used in the movie Strays—was blind and deaf and suffered from heart failure. Instead of letting him spend his golden years in a comfortable home with a loving fam, Atlanta Film Animals kept him (and other dogs) in an unheated garage like unused props as temps dropped as low as 35 degrees. 🥶 Staff also left a dog named Winnie outside all day in a barren kennel and routinely kept cats in crates, sometimes with a filthy litterbox or vomit-covered blankets.
Staff Denied ‘Retired’ Animals Veterinary Services and Other Basic Care
Elderly pigs Herbie and Fiona were “retired” from a live-action show at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. Atlanta Film Animals management failed to provide Herbie with veterinary care for a facial abscess that oozed white discharge, saying they couldn’t “do anything for” him because pigs are “farm animals.” 🤦 A supervisor said that she “popped” the abscess instead.
Herbie and Fiona both struggled to walk, limping on overgrown, inadequately trimmed hooves. Staff fed pigs moldy produce and smelly “compost,” 🤢 including tomatoes that one worker said were being eaten by rats.
Workers kept Maya, Candy, and Spanky—three capuchin monkeys who a manager said were “retired”—in waste-filled enclosures that reportedly went uncleaned for four days in a row.
Birds Kept in Filthy Conditions
Many chickens—kept in a barn stall that was often filthy and that a worker said got “drenched” every time it rained—had scaly legs and feet, some of which were swollen and even bloody. 🐔😱 Although these birds had leg mites and a painful infection called “bumblefoot,” a worker said that they hadn’t been provided with veterinary care.
The Same Old Suffering
This isn’t the first time PETA has discovered animals suffering in the film and TV industries. Atlanta Film Animals is a branch of Birds & Animals Unlimited (BAU), operated by Hollywood animal trainer Gary Gero. In 2016, we investigated BAU and found pigs with untreated illnesses, cats virtually starved to appear a certain way in roles, animals kept in filthy enclosures, and dogs kept in cold, barren kennels. 😡
Take Action for Animals Used for Film or TV
It’s time for studios, producers, and audiences to realize that animals used in productions aren’t cuddled on the couch with their trainers when they’re not being forced to perform. The ones found at Atlanta Film Animals and BAU were confined in miserable conditions and deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them. To help prevent animals from suffering in Hollywood, please share this page with friends, write to networks and studios to urge them not to use animals, and never pay for tickets to movies that use animals. 💖
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