Caged animals always on lockdown, powerful Aardman short reminds humans

Coronavirus lockdown getting to you? Wish you could go outside, see friends, have some control over your daily choices? Captive animals feel your pain, and while your stay-at-home order may eventually end, theirs is permanent. That’s the message of a new animated video from British animation studio Aardman Animations (think Wallace and Gromit) and released by international wildlife charity The Born Free Foundation.

The video show various caged animals, and the words they appear to be speaking come from interviews of humans talking about their lockdown experiences. Two caged tigers discuss how being trapped inside with the same person is a real relationship tester, an orangutan compares lockdown with “social castration,” a chained elephant wistfully speaks of her loneliness.

“Many animals in zoos, circuses and dolphinaria suffer in lockdown every day,” the statement from the foundation reads. “They’re trapped thousands of miles from their natural homes. Stripped of a life in the wild. And locked up for life. Almost all will die in captivity. We do our best to break this cycle and where possible rescue vulnerable animals from appalling conditions. Share this film and donate if you can so we can rescue even more wild animals from permanent lockdown.”

Aardman Animations is the studio behind the Wallace and Gromit short films, its TV spinoff Shaun the Sheep and the 2000 movie Chicken Run.