Days of Thunder (1990)

Animal action is minimal and the animals provide mostly atmosphere such as a pet dog that’s present in several scenes. An unfortunate accident occurred during the filming of one scene that involved unscripted animal action. Two cars were racing against each other on a Daytona Beach. There were seagulls on the beach, and in order to get a shot of the gulls taking flight as the speeding cars approached, the film crew scattered food on the beach to attract the gulls. As the cars approached, some of the gulls were hit resulting in the death of 2 gulls. A cruelty investigator from the Halifax Humane Society concluded that “although the film crew was grossly negligent in the luring of the birds to achieve the desired effect, I do not feel that the intent to commit the injury was deliberate.” Although the production company used poor judgment in luring the gulls with food, there was no deliberate intent to harm the birds and what resulted was an accident.