SPECTACULARly Cruel! Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular Still Uses Live Animals, Including Camels, Sheep, Donkeys In “Living Nativity”

Staten Islander Exclusive 

Radio City Music Hall continues to use live animals, including camels, sheep, and donkeys in their living nativity, which causes unnecessary stress and pain for the animals, including during their transportation and their time spent backstage.  PETA continues to call on Radio City to ditch the live animals in favor of animatronics or human actors.  

Live camel backstage at Radio City Music Hall. Image Credit – PETA

“Radio City Music Hall deserves coal in its stocking for not evolving with the times and still dragging stressed-out animals across its stage this December,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on the stage show to make Santa’s ‘nice’ list by kicking off a kinder, animal-free production.”

Staten Islander News spoke with PETA spokesperson Racheli Holstein about the protest and associated animal welfare issues.  Several questions were asked, which are listed below, along with paraphrased answers.  Exact quotes will be added later.  

1-What type of animatronics or other technologies are available that could replace the live animals in the living nativity type of shows?

Racheli’s answer was particularly important, in order to understand the crux of their argument.  She said, essentially, that it is not terribly important that something exist that can replace the living animals in the show, when you consider the way that these animals tend to be treated.  This is in line with PETA’s motto, which in part reads that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment…”

If animals are treated in abhorrent conditions, this needs to be changed regardless of the changes that would have to take place to the show.  If there is to be nothing while they find a suitable replacement, the show will still go on, as most of the focus (especially in popular culture) is the human performers. 

This is similar to what happened with Ringling Bros circus, which has now finally returned, completely free of the cruelty and taint that is associated with forcing animals to perform “tricks.” 

For example, when you think of Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular, what comes to your mind?  Take a moment to picture it….

……

Isn’t it the Rockettes doing their high kicks together in a line, and maybe Santa Claus in his sleigh waving?  I actually didn’t even know that a living nativity was part of their Christmas Show until this attention was brought to it by PETA. 

Consequently, I would think it isn’t essential to the show.  Notice I didn’t say it isn’t important; just that it isn’t essential, and thus it could be replaced with something else.  

2- What are some of the issues with the welfare of the animals performing at Radio City? 

In the case of the show particularly at Radio City Music Hall, there are multiple complaints against the company responsible for the care, feeding, veterinary care, and transportation of these animals. 

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These complaints come from the United States Department of Agriculture, and additional details about them were provided by David Perle. 

The company in charge of the care of the animals is Dawn Animal Agency.  The company has been charged with animal rights violations at least once EVERY year since 2020, including for such things as improperly stored food for the animals, which was stored next to potentially contaminating items. 

The same company stores unused old flooring, scrap metal, and miscellaneous debris on and around the animal enclosures at their facilities.  

Several of the complaints were related to inadequate veterinary care, as in 2007 and 2017, and in 2020 the medications were also stored improperly.  

These are serious issues that can jeopardize the safety and welfare of the animals.  What if their medications or food were contaminated, and they were still given to them anyway? 

The animals might become sick or be harmed, and then they would not receive proper treatment, since there are not enough veterinarians to treat the number of animals that they house adequately.  These are just some of the issues that were covered in their violations; it is by no means an exhaustive list.  

3- What is meant by inadequate veterinary care (which had been mentioned in a previous answer – info provided by David Perle)?

One of the citations they received was for failing to update their records to reflect the correct number of animals they were confining at their facility. 

It had been six months since a veterinarian had visited the facility, and in that time more animals were acquired but not accounted for in the veterinary care program.  They are required by law to maintain accurate records to ensure animals are receiving adequate veterinary care.  

What this means plainly is that for six months, no veterinarian visited the facility. Animals confined there were receiving, in essence, no veterinary care.  This includes regular checkups, making sure they are doing well, as well as emergency veterinary care. 

It is unknown if any emergencies occurred during that time, or what happened to the animals, as there was no oversight or report mentioned by the USDA in their citation issued during that time period.  

As Racheli said during our conversation, this makes it clear that the organization in charge of caring for the animals is treating them as props, as a way to make money, and not like the sentient, feeling, emotional non-human animals that they are.  

Since several of the citations were for the conditions of the housing facility, including uncleaned cages, filth and grime on the walls and floor of the enclosures, along with other types of sanitation issues, these animals were not cared for as they should be.  

If you would like to view the citations and issues for yourself, the following instructions from David at PETA will help you: “If  you go to: https://aphis.my.site.com/PublicSearchTool/s/inspection-reports

Racheli also mentioned one of the issues they specifically had with animals used in this performance.  This venue is in the heart of Times Square.  The show itself, while it is being performed, features bright lights, loud music, flashing lights, and screaming crowds.  Each of these things, individually, would certainly be stressful to animals such as camels and sheep.  

However, there is even more stress for the animals.  The camel was led around outside, in the streets of Times Square, in order to promote the show to passersby.  While this might be cool in a rural setting, if you’ve ever been to Times Square, it seems obvious that it is not really a place for animals to walk around. 

Unlike on Staten Island, there are no wild turkeys, rabbits, or chipmunks in this area.  The only animals that would be around are rats, mice, squirrels, and of course, birds.  These animals have in many cases adapted to the bright lights and loud noises of Times Square, and it doesn’t bother them.  For a camel, though, this might be a highly stressful situation.  

Watching the video, though, the sheep and donkey seem to be having a terrible time.  They look so sad and miserable.  The camel seems to be having the best time out of all of them.  Cardinal Dolan came to the show and blessed the animals outside of Radio City Music Hall as part of the video promo.  

While PETA feels that the living nativities, which have been a fixture of many Christmas celebrations around the world since it was first suggested by a humble Italian priest, Saint Francis of Assisi, should be rejected by the Catholic Church, as well as all other Christian faiths.  This rejection could easily be on the basis of how the animals are treated. 

If the Christian faith teaches stewardship, then animals should not be kept in these types of conditions  It should be unacceptable on a moral and ethical basis, because animals are alive, they do feel pain, and they can suffer just as much, and often in the same ways and for the same reasons, as a human being would.   

While there presumably are organizations that do not so openly violate the Animal Welfare Act.  It nevertheless does take a lot to get so many citations.  The USDA itself has been known to be lax, particularly when it comes to enforcing violations of the Animal Welfare Act. 

So, when you see an organization cited year after year, often with a laundry list of violations in one citation, there could certainly be an animal care facility that does not treat their animals so poorly.  It could be inferred that this group would be best avoided by any company seeking to produce a living nativity, and a group without such violations be sought.  

It could easily be stated that the USDA has failed in its task to enforce the most basic tenets and purposes of the Animal Welfare Act, which was passed in an effort to limit the amount of suffering animals experience as a whole.  

According to data analyzed by the Des Moines Register, “This judgment rests most palpably on data indicating that under Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Team has been unremittingly weak in its response to the Animal Welfare Act, including puppy mills and roadside zoos….For Fiscal Year 2022, USDA reviewed 262 cases involving violations but pursued just several dozen enforcement actions beyond simple warnings, ….and to our knowledge the agency did not confiscate a single suffering animal from any institution.  Statistics from the two previous years were no better”

It has also been pointed out by PETA that the living nativities are historically inadequate.  In Pope Benedict XVI’s biography of Jesus Christ, he mentions that there were no oxen, camels, donkeys, or other animals of any kind in the manger.  He said this in the third volume of his biography of Christ.  

If a place such as Radio City Music Hall wanted to have animals in a living nativity, they could certainly use a more humane caretaking association than the Dawn Animal Agency.  As mentioned previously, the USDA doesn’t seem to provide any type of enforcement that would actually deter companies from treating animals in contradiction to the AWA.  In other words, there could be teeth in the law, but they don’t employ any of them in the vast majority of cases.  

It is also not that difficult for any of these animal care agencies to treat their animals well.  It is very much like people in private prison systems.  People in such systems receive little or no medical treatment, among a host of other ways that they are treated as sub-human by the wardens and prison guards. 

There was a gentleman in prison years back whose story was included in the book American Prison by Shane Bauer, an expose of the private prison system in a Southern state, but whose conclusions have since been shown to apply nationwide.  The man, who was African-American, had an infection in his foot.  

I don’t remember how it started, but he requested medical care immediately,  However, because the prison would have had to pay for his treatment (as part of their agreement with the state to house prisoners, while being paid to do so), they decided not to send him to the hospital or clinic for medical care.  

The infection became worse and worse, until when they finally brought him to the hospital, his leg had to be amputated.  So, lack of medical care can have very damaging consequences, both to a human and to an animal.  

Below is a statement from PETA regarding Alec Baldwin’s letter to Radio City urging them to ditch the living nativity, and embrace other types of performances.