Even having the best intentions does not make it possible to recreate the habitat and complex social relations of wild animals. In most cases the animals used in filming live in reduced spaces lacking in environmental enrichment.
There are also suppliers that keep their animals in relatively large adapted enclosures. However, although they make assurances that the animals will be offered the best living conditions, these suppliers end up supporting and taking economic advantage of the very industry they were hoping to distance themselves from. Ultimately they shut the animals up in their installations denying them their freedom and the physical and social behaviour natural to their species. As long as the demand for wild animals continues for this (and other) type of practice, activities like the hunting and smuggling of wild animals will not disappear.
Loti and Tarzan, chimpanzees rescued in Spain from the audiovisual industry, took 9 years to overcome their problems of agoraphobia and go back outside.
The anti-natural environmental and psychological conditions in which these animals are forced to live may provoke traumas and psychological problems which last a lifetime. Loti and Tarzan, two chimpanzees that appeared in several audiovisual productions (La Marató on TV3 in 2006, among others) and had to live in the trailer of a truck for several years, are an example of this. When they were rescued by the Rainfer Rescue Centre (Madrid) they had serious skin problems (lacking hair and colour, and with severe dermatitis). They also had an underdevelopment of skeletal muscles and serious psychological disorders (profound apathy, fear of people and agoraphobia). It wasn’t until 2016, after 9 years in the centre and a lot of care, that they managed to get over their fear of going out of doors and set foot on the soil of the open-air part of their enclosure.
At the state level
Among the successful initiatives we highlight: