Animal Deaths
Two horses died during the production of this movie, causing much publicity and debate.
The death of the first horse occurred at Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, California, on April 11, 2005 during a running scene. According to the American Humane Association (AHA), the horse broke its leg after a misstep and suffered a very rare injury requiring the animal to be euthanized. The AHA's report concluded that the "death was accidental and could not have been predicted or prevented."
The second horse died two weeks later, on April 25, 2005, at the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center in San Fernando Valley. Reports from both the AHA and the Los Angeles Animal Services Department, concluded that during the shooting of a scene involving four horses, one of them got loose from the cowboy who was holding its lead rope, and after having been running loose for some 20 seconds, the horse changed direction and tripped on the regulation length 13-foot lead rope and fell to the ground, breaking its neck and dying instantly. As the accident wouldn't have happened if the horse hadn't come loose, the Los Angeles Animal Services Department concluded that the accident had been preventable.
After an investigation, the AHA declared that the deaths were not the fault of the filmmakers. However, the usual "No animals were harmed in the making of this film" statement would not appear in the end credits of the film, as animals obviously had been harmed.
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Famous quotes containing the words animal and/or deaths:
“Certain anthropologists hold that man, having discovered tools, ceased to evolve biologically. Animals, never having discovered them, continue to fashion drills out of their beaks, oars out of their hind feet, wings out of their forefeet, suits of armor out of their hides, levers out of their horns, saws out of their teeth. Whether this be true or not, all authorities agree that man is the tool-using animal. It sets him off from the rest of the animal kingdom as drastically as does speech.”
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“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)