PETA has sent boxes of ape-shaped vegan chocolates to Sega executives in San Francisco–along with a heartfelt “thank you.” That’s because the gaming giant has taken action and pulled an online video that had the animal rights group seeing red. The video, which promoted SEGA’s new release, Samba de Amigo, featured a dancing, maraca-shaking baby chimpanzee.
PETA contacted Sega immediately after learning about the video and engaged in negotiations with Sega CEO Simon Jeffery and Vice President of Marketing Sean Ratcliffe. Following these negotiations, SEGA removed the video from its Web site and pledged never to use great apes again.
PETA pointed out that chimpanzees and orangutans who are used as “involuntary, unpaid actors” are taken away from their mothers–often when they are just days old–and electrically shocked and beaten during training sessions. A primatologist who spent 14 months working at a California facility that trains great apes for the TV and movie industries observed that trainers kicked, punched, and beat chimpanzees in order to make them obey commands that, to the chimpanzees, are confusing and meaningless.
World-renowned chimpanzee expert Dr. Jane Goodall supports PETA’s efforts to end the use of great apes in the entertainment industry. In March, Goodall and other primatologists wrote in the journal Science that the portrayal of chimpanzees in ads undermines efforts to save these endangered animals.
“All chimpanzees who are trained to perform have been torn from their mothers–a traumatic process that scars both mother and baby for life–and the training methods that they endure are abusive and cruel,” says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. “We applaud SEGA for scrapping this ad and taking a stand against the abuse of great apes.”
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