Pushing coal-filled wheelbarrows, a bevy of PETA “elves” will descend on Radio City Music Hall on Thursday to make a pointed appeal for the Christmas Spectacular to stop using live camels, sheep, and donkeys in its Nativity scene, a practice that began before people realized that the animals are needlessly stressed during transport and by being plonked down into an unfamiliar environment and subjected to large crowds and loud noises.

When:    Thursday, December 21, 7 p.m.

Where:    Outside Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Sixth Ave. (between 50th and 51st streets), New York

PETA’s “elves” will also point out that it’s highly stressful and confusing for animals to be stored backstage like props—and that the Christmas Spectacular partners with notorious animal exhibitor Dawn Animal Agency, whose many citations for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act include failing to maintain adequate veterinary programs and housing animals in cluttered, damaged, and grime-filled enclosures.

“Radio City Music Hall deserves coal in its stocking for not evolving with the times and still dragging stressed-out animals across its stage this December,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on the stage show to make Santa’s ‘nice’ list by kicking off a kinder, animal-free production.”

A camel tied up backstage at Radio City Music Hall. Credit: PETA

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.