Nabisco Animal Crackers Boxes Got A Makeover And Now The Animals Are Roaming Free

Nabisco's parent company redesigned Barnum's Animal Crackers boxes to show the animals roaming free — and not in cages — after pressure from PETA.

These cookie critters are tasting freedom.

After spending 116 years behind bars, the majestic beasts on boxes of Nabisco Barnum’s Animals Crackers are no longer being depicted in lock-up.

Nabisco’s parent company, Mondelez International, redesigned the snack's packaging in response to pressure by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA, which has denounced using animals in circuses, wrote a letter to Mondelez in the spring of 2016 calling for a redesign, according to AP.

“Given the egregious cruelty inherent in circuses that use animals and the public’s swelling opposition to the exploitation of animals used for entertainment,” PETA wrote to the food giant, “we urge Nabisco to update its packaging in order to show animals who are free to roam in their natural habitats.”

Mondelez agreed and started working on a makeover.

Rebooted cookie boxes, which declare “new look, same great taste,” are on U.S. store shelves now.

The new boxes have the same lettering and color scheme, but a zebra, elephant, lion, giraffe and gorilla wander side-by-side outside, instead of being confined in circus boxcars.

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A Zoney, a Cross-Breeding Between a Zebra and a Donkey, Born at Crimean Zoo

A zoo in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea has welcomed its latest arrival – a "zonkey", which was born after a lonesome zebra got intimate with a donkey.

Named Telegraph by keepers at the Taigan zoo park in southern Crimea, the foal's head and body are the solid brown of a donkey but his legs have the characteristic black stripes of a zebra.

Born last week, "Telegraph is very popular with visitors" who can watch him romping around with his mother, according to zoo director Oleg Zubkov.

Cross-breeding between zebras and other members of the equine family is not unheard of, although it is rare that the zebra is the mother.

But the breeding of zonkeys or other hybrids is normally frowned upon by the zoo community.

"Such things don't happen in civilized zoos, but can occur at private zoos or on farms," said Anna Kachurovskaya, a spokeswoman for Moscow Zoo.

"This sort of marketing is not justified or scientific ... zoos are for preserving wild species, that is one of their most important goals."

Zubkov said Telegraph's mother, who had not had a mate for a long time, was lonely and uncomfortable in her enclosure at the private zoo founded two years ago about 20 miles from Crimea's main city Simferopol.

"So on the advice of a zoologist we moved her in with several other hoofed animals and she really liked the donkey. As a result of their affection for one another we've gotten Telegraph," Zubkov said in an email to AFP.

Telegraph was named after a local newspaper which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary.

Russia seized the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March in a move hotly contested by Kiev and the international community.