Gino D’Acampo and Stuart Manning

Two contestants on the UK reality show “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here,” have been charged with animal cruelty in Australia after killing and cooking up a rat. Their group was only given rice and beans to eat and celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo decided to take matters into his own hands by catching and killing a rat to add to their meager meal. D’Acampo, the winner of the show, and his co-conspirator, actor Stuart Manning, must report to court on animal cruelty charges in New South Wales, Australia, in February of next year. D’Acampo and Manning are said to have received permission from producers to kill the rat, and some of their fellow contestants are asking why producers aren’t being held responsible:

The pair were part of a group in ”exile” for part of the series, which meant meagre rations of rice and beans, so they caught, killed and cooked a rat to give them “more protein”.

D’Acampo, 33, a chef, said in the show’s video diary room the Bush Telegraph: ”I saw one of these rats running around. I got a knife, I got its throat, I picked it up.”

The group, including Manning, 30, the former Hollyoaks actor, ate the rat and enjoyed the meal.

Ch Insp David O’Shannessy from the RSPCA in New South Wales, said it was not acceptable that an animal had been killed as part of a performance.

He said: ”The allegation is that an animal was cruelly treated on the set. It was a rat that was killed. There is a code of conduct in New South Wales that dictates how animals can be used. The killing of a rat for a performance is not acceptable.”

The charity sends staff whenever animals are used for filmed or live performances, he said, and so had been in contact with the programme’s producers before the rat was killed.

When they were told what had happened, they decided to take action.

A spokesman for New South Wales said: ”Police from Murwillumbah yesterday issued field court attendance notices to two men aged 30 and 33 for the offence of animal cruelty. They are due to attend court at Murwillumbah local court on February 3, 2009.”

I understand that they’re supposed to get permission to work with animals on TV, but shouldn’t they just be issued a citation and be done with it? They killed an animal that a lot of people consider a pest. Rats are smart little creatures and I have a friend who keeps one as a pet, but as a meat eater I don’t feel too sorry for a wild rat being killed for food. Maybe the Australian government is trying to send a message to the film industry that they need to adhere to animal cruelty regulations.

D’ACampo is defiant in his response to allegations of animal cruelty. He says the meal was “the best recipe I ever did” and that he doesn’t “regret one single thing I did in the jungle to feed my camp mates.” His fellow contestants seemed to agree as they ate up the meal, exclaiming how good it was. They were starving, though, so he could have fed them crackers with cheese and they would have sung his praises.

Broadcaster ITV has apologized for the incident and says they’ll make sure something similar doesn’t happen again.

I scrolled through a bunch of YouTube videos looking for this rat-eating incident, which is below. I initially thought it was in a show that aired a day earlier and wasted a ton of time trying to watch this crap. I can’t stomach people fighting, eating bugs, and sitting around talking about nothing for hours (in that order) so this was rather unpleasant for me. How this passes for entertainment is beyond me.

Rat discussion starts at 7:00 minutes into the video below.

Rat eating continues at the beginning of this video until about 1:00 in.