Just in case Santa is having any trouble with his last-minute "naughty or nice" decisions, PETA has teamed up with World Entertainment News Network to circulate a Christmas Eve list of the most animal-unfriendly celebrities of the year. So here are our Top (Bottom?) Three Celebrity Grinches of 2011:

• When Janet Jackson had her infamous "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl, at least the flesh that popped into view was her own—unlike the stolen animal skins that she drapes herself with, which are as dead as her taste in fashion (not to mention her career). Ms. Jackson, you're just plain nasty.
• Filmmaker and former visionary Cameron Crowe went retro in the wrong way for his new flick, We Bought a Zoo, which relied on the performing-animal industry—in which the "actors" are routinely neglected and even abused—instead of using state-of-the-art computer imaging. Exploiting live animals to tell a story about saving animals? At least Elizabethtown won't go down as his worst creative flop.
• Some have speculated that Kim Kardashian's wedding to NBA forward Kris Humphries was fake. Too bad the socialite princess doesn't have the same enthusiasm for faking her fur. Unlike her sweet sister Khloe, who starred in her own PETA anti-fur ad, Kim just can't seem to divorce herself from fur and say "I do" to a kind and kompassionate wardrobe.

 Kim © StarmaxInc | Foxes © Patricia Kullberg/ Dreamstime.com

Here's hoping that the hearts of this terrible trio grow three sizes this holiday season and that we can start the new year off (animal) right(s)!

© Zebra: deste / sxc.hu | Ribbon: Elize / sxc.hu

Fading director Cameron Crowe is using wild animals as "actors." In his new movie, We Bought a Zoo, he used lions, bears, and other wild animals who are at great risk for abuse because of their strength and instinctive aggression.

PETA repeatedly reached out to Crowe and Fox Studios before and during production and warned them about how wild animals used for films are often subjected to food deprivation, beatings, and jolts with electric-shock devices during pre-production training and urged them to use high-tech computer-generated imagery instead, like that used in the blockbuster Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Animals rented out for use in movies aren't often abused on the set—that usually takes place when no one is around to see it. PETA undercover investigations at wild-animal training facilities documented that lions and tigers were repeatedly beaten and psychologically abused by trainers intent on showing them "who's boss." When animals grow too old or too large to be controlled, they often spend the rest of their lives at decrepit roadside zoos or backyard menageries.

Please skip this movie and tweet that animals belong in the wild, not on the big screen, @WeBoughtAZoo.

After four dozen animals were shot and killed in Ohio last week, PETA has reached out again to director Cameron Crowe, asking that he insist that 20th Century Fox producers put a disclaimer on his upcoming film  We Bought a Zoo, stating that keeping wild animals as pets is dangerous for both people and animals. The movie's trailer recklessly implies that all it takes is heart to operate a zoo—reinforcing the irresponsible idea that anyone can own and properly care for tigers, bears, lions, and other wild animals.

Even The Wall Street Journal calls into question the film's marketing following the mass slaughter in Ohio. Experts have already appealed to the director to stop using animals in his films.

Don't forget to ask the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to exercise its authority to declare emergency regulations to prohibit the keeping of wild animals, seize all such animals over which it has jurisdiction, and ensure that they are placed in reputable sanctuaries.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Experts are calling on director Cameron Crowe to stop using primates as props in his films, like his upcoming We Bought a Zoo: