Animal rights organization Paris Animaux Zoopolis (PAZ) has launched a campaign against the French venue Moulin Rouges for putting non-aquatic snakes in water on stage.
The daily cabaret show at the Moulin Rouge includes a performance with a dancer playing with pythons in a pool of water. “The snakes have no business being there,” said Amandine Sanvisens, co-founder of the PAZ, which has launched a petition against the act.
“Throughout the scene, the snake tries to keep its head out of the water. This isn’t the right environment for reptiles,” Sanvisens said.
In December, PAZ demonstrated against animal cruelty outside the Moulin Rouge venue. A representative of the cabaret show told a local newspaper then that they “never mistreated and will never mistreat animals” and that they use “a species of aquatic python, equally at home in the water as on land” in the show.
But Alice Georges, who works at an exotic pet shop, said she had spotted reticulated pythons and Indian pythons -both native to Asia- in videos of the act posted online. “These aren’t aquatic snakes. What they’re being forced to endure is horrible,” Georges said.
This year, France will ban the use of wild animals in nightclubs or on TV. “We’re waiting to see what comes next, whether or not a criminal complaint will be filed,” a Moulin Rouge spokeswoman told news agency AFP.