PETA urges boycott of movie over bison deaths

A movie filmed in Alberta opens in theatres on Friday, two years after it was subject to an investigation for using the carcasses of five Alberta bison.

Animal rights activist group PETA is calling for a boycott of the film over the deaths of the animals, which it says were slaughtered and skinned for a hunting scene.

Alpha, which is set in the Ice Age, was partially filmed in Drumheller and Dinosaur Provincial Park in 2016, along with B.C. and Iceland.

Then-titled The Solutrean, the American Humane Association denied the film’s “No Animals Were Harmed” end-credit certification in September 2016.

That followed an AHA investigation into allegations that an Alberta-based animal wrangler hired by the film’s production company violated its standards, “which absolutely and definitively prohibit the killing or injuring of any animal for the sake of a film production.”

While Studio 8, the production company behind the film, “went out of its way” to follow the AHA’s standards so no animals would be harmed, the watchdog group found the wrangler had arranged to have bison killed for the film, constituting “a clear violation of our guidelines and something we cannot and will not tolerate,” the AHA stated atthetime.

“No animal should ever be killed or injured for the purposes of a film,” it stated.

“Therefore, we are categorically denying The Solutrean our certification.”

The production purchased the animals for the scene in question from Longview Beef Jerky, which processed the buffalo for the movie in the way the production company wanted, according to John Scott, the animal wrangler employed on the film.

He said one of the bison used had a broken shoulder while another had a broken ankle. A third was already dead, while the other two were destined for a meat processing plant.

“If it was beef cattle, would anybody say anything? If it was deer, if it was elk? I mean, the beef jerky store, they process animals all the time,” Scott said.

“These were animals designed for slaughter and instead of going in the food chain they went over to the movie chain. That’s the only difference.”

Scott has been working with animals in the film industry for years and his work has appeared in other big-budget films shot in Alberta, including Legends of the Fall and The Revenant.

“I’m also in the business of raising buffalo and cattle. Some of my buffalo go for meat and some of them go for breeding stock. It should be really a non-issue if a processing company wants to process some animals and they do it right and they do it humanely,” Scott said.

“PETA doesn’t like animals in anything ... They’re trying to ruin every animal that is in the film business.”

In a statement, PETA’s senior vice-president, Lisa Lange, said moviegoers should boycott Alpha.

“Five sensitive bison lost their lives, all so that their bodies could be used as props in this wholly forgettable flick,” Lange said.