Animal Welfare Concerns
Sid Yost, of Amazing Animal Productions, who also goes by the name Ranger Rick Kelly, supplied chimpanzees for some of the Trunk Monkey ads. Sarah Baeckler, a primatologist, conducted an undercover investigation at Yost’s training facility. She reported that "The trainers use physical force to train the chimps and other animals as well but they punch them they kick them. They use weapons such as a sawed off broom handle that they called the ugly stick." Yost surrendered his chimpanzees and agreed to no longer work with non-human primates in settlement of a lawsuit alleging violations of the Animal Welfare Act and California Anti-Cruelty laws. Because of this, and other suspected abuses of chimpanzees used in these ads, animal rights group PETA has asked R-West to cancel the series of commercials.
Read more about this topic: Trunk Monkey
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