Hobbit Deaths

Remember all those black and white Hollywood cowboy films made in the 50's? Wagon trains full of settlers being chased and ambushed by plains Indians, the heroic US Cavalry coming to the rescue and those cattle drives where it all got out of control with stampedes galore. Not that I blame John Wayne or Clint Eastwood after all their films often had an art house feel and perhaps still do after all these years.
Seemingly no animals were hurt in the making of those films. I am assured that only trained specialist stunt horses and specially bred stunt cows took part in the filming and that they were retired to stunt animal farms when their tumbling days were over.
In the making of the Hobbit there were seemingly quite a few animals involved in death. Briefly reported at the time but perhaps hushed up slightly in all the pre-launch hype were the deaths of around 27 horses.
As an experiment in animal psychology, I decided to test my cat's understanding of the implications of the attitude of the film industry regarding the treatment of animals. After all we have had the Lassie series and of course Tin Tin's Milou so it might just be the turn of moggies soon. Cat Woman of course does not count.
We set up a plate of Tommy and Lucy's favourite food, chicken drumsticks, just outside the back door. It was dark, the temperature was +5C, conditions were damp and wind speed was around 2mph.
A picture of Ian McKellen was cut into four equal parts and placed around the bait food. The cats were shown the food but refused to go near it.
Only when the Hobbit picture was removed did they show interest and after checking carefully that the picture had been completely removed from the scene they devoured the drumsticks in their entirety.
Quite a result really.