TV host: I'm a Celebrity abuses animals for entertainment
Chris Packham has accused ITV’s “I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here” of "abusing animals for entertainment". Appearing on Channel 5’s “Jeremy Vine”, the TV presenter and environmentalist called on the show to replace the trials with ones that "don't involve the cruelty, exploitation and unnecessary stereotyping of these creatures". Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Transcript
00:00 Well, I mean, maybe their standards are set too low for some of us to start up with.
00:04 But even if they are doing it legally, what we can see is abuse of animals for entertainment.
00:09 You know, if I were a crocodile, if I were a snake, if I were a toad, I wouldn't want
00:14 to be enclosed in a tank with a giggling or gurning celebrity just to make people laugh.
00:20 We put all of this stuff behind us, Germany, in this country.
00:23 We're a nation of animal lovers.
00:25 We've got rid of circuses.
00:26 We've got rid of bear baiting, cop fighting, dog fighting.
00:29 You know, we're doing everything we can to make sure that we uphold the very highest
00:33 standards of animal welfare and critically, whether it's legal or not, respect for those
00:38 creatures.
00:39 We need to engender a respect for all life because it won't have escaped you yourself
00:43 and your viewers that we're in the midst of a biodiversity crisis.
00:46 We're losing millions of species potentially on our planet down to our actions.
00:51 And we need to reverse that.
00:53 I was looking at the history of it.
00:54 You're right.
00:55 They've definitely done bad things in the past.
00:57 In 2009, there was actually police action after the RSPCA in Australia said that a rat
01:03 had been killed and eaten.
01:05 Fern McCann ate a live water spider.
01:08 There was a story about a crocodile having its mouth taped shut.
01:11 But has it not improved?
01:12 No, I don't think it has improved.
01:16 Basically, they have changed the bush like in 2019.
01:19 If you'll remember before that, they were eating live animals.
01:23 Now they're eating dead animals.
01:25 But the message is the same.
01:28 What the animals are being used for is amusement.
01:31 It's not for engagement or education, which might lead to proactive conservation.
01:37 It's simply there for amusement.
01:39 So whether they're dead or not makes little difference.
01:41 Do you want I'm a Celeb shut down?
01:43 No, I don't.
01:45 Not at all.
01:46 It's a highly entertaining program.
01:47 It's enormously popular.
01:49 It's critical for ITV when it comes to raising revenue.
01:52 Lots of people are employed on that program.
01:53 I work in the television industry some of the time, so I'm not trying to do people out
01:57 of jobs here.
01:58 I'm asking them to exercise their imagination, something that they're very good of at ITV
02:04 when it comes to entertainment programs, to replace the animals with trials which are,
02:08 you know, amusing for people but don't involve cruelty and exploitation and unnecessary stereotyping
02:15 of these creatures.