Another Celebrity Death

{ September 17, 2009 @ 11:31 am } · { Funny Perculiar }
{ Tags: Celebrity deaths, Giraffe, Pawnation, PETA, Toys R Us, Tweet }

Tweet, the Toys R Us giraffe, died recently… Why God why?

Tweet had heard his last "Hows the weather up there?" joke

The celebrity animal appeared in movies like Evan Almighty and television commercials for Toys R Us.

Below is an article from pawnation detailing his tragic passing and subsequent calls from PETA for an investigation!

Shew!

‘Tweet’ the Giraffe’s Sudden Death Prompts PETA to Instigate Federal Investigation

It's a bit of a tall order

The shocking death of an 18 year-old giraffe named Tweet — who appeared in movies like Evan Almighty and television commercials for Toys R Us — has stunned his owners and prompted the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to call for a federal investigation.

Tweet had just finished filming his scenes in Zookeeper — a romantic comedy starring Kevin James and Rosario Dawson that is slated for an October 8, 2010 release — when the giraffe suddenly collapsed in his enclosure, reports the Boston Herald. According to the Gainesville Sun, one of Tweet’s owners, Patty Rivers, was in the enclosure with Tweet “when she noticed him list to the side and then topple.”

Veterinarians were hastily summoned, but Tweet was dead. The giraffe seemed healthy when examined the day before. “[The vets] said he was in excellent shape and everything looked good,” Rivers told the Gainesville Sun. “We think he had a brain aneurysm or a stroke or something because it happened so quick.”

Tweet was pronounced dead on September 11 at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, quoted American Humane, an organization that dispatches certified animal safety representatives to film and television sets across the country to monitor animal safety during filming. (Read an in-depth interview that Paw Nation previously conducted with an American Humane certified animal safety representative.)

PETA, which has long objected to the use of animals on Zookeeper, filed a complaint with the United States Department of Agriculture, alleging possible violations of the Animal Welfare Act, reports the Boston Herald. According to a statement on PETA’s website, a whistleblower contacted PETA, saying that “Tweet’s premature death may have resulted from his eating pieces of the blue tarp that covered his enclosure” and that “Tweet’s owner and trainers were notified that the giraffe had been eating the tarp but that they did nothing about it.”

Tweet lived in Florida as part of a menagerie of exotic animals owned by Animals in Motion, which claims to provide “the only working giraffes on the East Coast.”

Rivers, who is a co-owner of Animal Motion, told the Gainesville Sun that “we thought [Tweet would] be with us another 15 years.” PETA alleges that, in the wild, giraffes can live into their mid-twenties.

Despite the animal abuse allegations by PETA, American Humane’s Jone Bauman “said a necropsy performed at the zoo within 30 minutes of Tweet’s death did not find any pieces of tarp in the giraffe’s mouth or stomach,” reports the Boston Herald. Experts are still trying to determine the exact cause of Tweet’s untimely death.

Working giraffes?  Makes them sound pimpin…

Although I think 18 is a pretty good run for a giraffe.

RIP Tweet.