PETA has slammed Zac Efron as a ‘hypocrite’ for filming an advertisement for Kodiak Cakes that features a captive bear.
The newly appointed chief brand officer for the food company and High School Musical star recently took to his social media to promote the clean eating range that’s ‘100 per cent whole grain, protein-packed, and non-GMO’.
The actor revealed the company's limited edition merchandise would 100 per cent be going towards the Grizzly Bear foundation and preserving wildlife habitats.
Despite this pledge, PETA was not too happy.
The animal rights organisation called out the Bad Neighbours star for filming a series of advertisements with 27-year-old Tank, a brown bear born in captivity and taken from a breeder at six weeks old.
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Tank has even appeared in Discovery’s Man Vs Bear.
TMZ reports that PETA foundation director of captive animal welfare Debbie Metzler slammed the promo, saying: “It’s hypocritical to exploit one animal to potentially help another.
“No true conservation group would ever force captive animals to perform tricks for the camera in order to raise awareness about their wild counterparts.”
The organisation demands the ad to either be removed or for the animal to be replaced with CGI.
Metzler also told Metro: “Treating Tank like a prop and not appreciating that, unlike Zac, he’ll never get to choose his roles is a form of speciesism.
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“Peta urges Kodiak Cakes and Efron to focus on truly protecting wild bears by leaving Tank and any other performing animals out of their ads.”
In June, PETA awarded The Boys with the ‘Tech, Not Terror’ award, which praised the Prime Video series for using CGI in scenes featuring an octopus instead of a live creature.
The nonprofit organisation applauded the dark superhero show ‘for using cutting-edge, cruelty-free computer-generated imagery to depict a stunningly realistic octopus and for sending the message that eating animals is grotesque and cruel’.
PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange also said via a press release: “The Boys’ real heroes are working behind the scenes, creating a realistic CGI octopus so that animals can live in peace.
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“PETA is celebrating this series for helping viewers see every octopus as an individual like Timothy, not as an entrée or as entertainment.”
The Boys' creator Eric Kripke also spoke of that jarring scene in an interview with TV Guide and said that Timothy the octopus ‘didn’t deserve the cruel fate of being eaten raw’.
And honestly, anyone watching it will definitely think twice about eating anything with tentacles.
Charisa Bossinakis