ANIMAL charity chiefs have been ridiculed for urging us not to squish spiders with newspapers like The Sun.
The warning from the RSPCA is in a new advert as part of a rebrand.
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A promo video sees animated chickens and cows singing Aretha Franklin’s hit Respect.
It includes examples of abuse such as a man kicking a dog and a malnourished pet.
But the short film also shows a bee being caught in a lawnmower, a car running over a hedgehog and a mock-up of a hairy spider being killed with a red-top tabloid, which looks like Britain’s best newspaper.
Voiceovers in the clip — for the RSPCA’s For Every Kind campaign — come from Strictly head judge Shirley Ballas, TV naturalist Chris Packham and actor Brian Blessed.
Critics slammed the ad, with Countryside Alliance chief Tim Bonner saying: “However hard it tries, the RSPCA just can’t help getting it wrong.
“People expect it to focus on the welfare of domestic animals not to promote ‘respect’ for spiders and snails.
“We all love bees, but when there are so many cases of real animal cruelty, lecturing people on lawn mowing really isn’t the issue.”
Including cows in the clip has also angered dairy farmers.
Welsh hill farmer Gareth Wyn Jones described it as a “kick in the teeth” and insisted: “Respecting animals is what 99 per cent of farmers do.”
Charity chief executive Chris Sherwood insisted that the RSPCA is “for every kind of animal, but also for every kind of person”.
