Warner Brothers Criticized for Animal Mistreatment at Harry Potter Set

Animal rights group PETA have criticized Warner Brothers Studios for mistreatment of animals at the Harry Potter Tour in London. Visitors to the Leavesden studios, where the Harry Potter movies were filmed, are given the opportunity to “meet the real feathered and furred actors” from the franchise.

A video filmed by a PETA investigator at the studio tour shows owls in small cages. “Staff actively encouraged flash photography, despite the fact that owls have especially acute vision and find blinding camera flashes extremely distressing. The owls respond by desperately chewing at their tethers and shaking their heads,” a PETA statement read.

In 2012, it emerged people who had bought pet owls having seen the birds in the Harry Potter films were abandoning them. At the time, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling said, “If anybody has been influenced by my books to think an owl would be happiest shut in a small cage and kept in a house, I would like to take this opportunity to say as forcefully as I can, ‘you are wrong.’" Credit: YouTube/PETA UK