AHA is a farce
“It’s fascinating and ironic: From being the protectors of animals they’ve [the American Humane Association] become complicit to animal cruelty,” says Bob Ferber, a veteran L.A. City Attorney’s office prosecutor who founded and supervised its Animal Protection Unit until retiring in March.
Ferber is not surprised by the allegation that the AHA is failing to adequately monitor many productions. When he attempted in 2005 to investigate two horse deaths during production of Fox’s Flicka (based on the beloved children’s novel), he says the AHA’s Film & TV Unit management insisted the deaths on the sets in the Simi and San Fernando valleys were unpreventable accidents. When he dispatched L.A. Animal Control officers to talk to the AHA, “They told animal control to f— themselves,” he says. “This is worse than doing nothing. This is like a cop not just ignoring a crime but helping cover it up.”
Producer Gil Netter also allowed animal cruelty on another production, Life of Pi.
American Humane Association monitor Gina Johnson confided in an email to a colleague on April 7, 2011, about the star tiger in Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. While many scenes featuring “Richard Parker,” the Bengal tiger who shares a lifeboat with a boy lost at sea, were created using CGI technology, King, very much a real animal, was employed when the digital version wouldn’t suffice. “This one take with him just went really bad and he got lost trying to swim to the side,” Johnson wrote. “Damn near drowned.”
How ironic that Director Michael Mayer's new show is called Do No Harm.
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