one green planet
one green planet

Popular UK show, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, needs to stop abusing animals as part of its show games. The show uses gags and gimmicks involving rats, snakes, insects and other creatures for laughs. In a series called “The Bushtucker Trials,” celebrities are forced to either eat live animals, or lie down in coffins with them in order to win stars for their side.

Viva! Animal rights alongside celebrities like Chris Packham and Lucy Watson have called to end animals’ involvements in the trials.

These games harm animals and expose families and children to animal cruelty. It normalizes using animals for sport.

Chris Packham told the Daily Mirror about using animals on the show, “When I see them being harmed or killed for entertainment, I wonder if we are not in the Middle Ages. It’s about change. People have to accept that we have to make changes now.”

In an editorial posted by Viva! activist Tayana Simons, she said of the use of animals on the show, “The Bushtucker Trials epitomise a flippant disregard for non-human animal life which does not belong in this century. They need to end. If the animals used in the show were socially valued animals such as cats or dogs, there would be an uproar at scenes of them being grabbed and flung by the neck, tossed around in overcrowded caves or having their body parts eaten on live TV. Sadly, the trials typify and strengthen the widely held belief that some animals are more deserving of compassion and respect than others.”

Read more below to learn about how animals are abused for entertainment and why this is extremely inhumane:

Update 11/21/19: The TV show has now officially banned eating live insects! Unfortunately, they will still eat dead insects and the use of animals has not been entirely banned from the show.

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