Chris Packham slams I'm A Celebrity's Bushtucker Trials

Wildlife presenter Chris Packham has urged Ant and Dec to end the 'abuse of animals' on the show. Credit: Press Association

Wildlife presenter Chris Packham has urged Ant and Dec to step in and end the "abuse of animals" on I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!

The ITV jungle show returns on Sunday with a new line-up of celebrities, who will each face spiders, snakes and cockroaches in the Bushtucker Trials.

Springwatch host Packham decried the trials as being "barbaric" and "silly" and said the hit show was undoing the work of natural history programmes.

In an open letter to the presenting duo, published in Radio Times magazine, Packham said teaching young viewers that killing for "exploitative 'entertainment' is acceptable" is "a shame that I imagine neither of you will want to take to your graves".

Just another day in the jungle for the I'm A Celebrity ...Get Me Out Of Here! contestants. Credit: ITV/I'm A Celebrity

He wrote, "Could I please ask you to reconsider the use/abuse of animals in your popular and otherwise entertaining show, I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!?"

The presenter said that the trials "undermined a respect for life, which ... impacts negatively upon conservation ... and ... spoils the show because it's simply out of date, some would say barbaric."

"By orchestrating a fear of them [snakes, spiders etc] among your contestants, I'm afraid you're reinforcing and exaggerating a terrible ignorance and intolerance of these remarkable animals," he added.

Chris Packham wrote the open letter to I'm A Celebrity hosts Ant and Dec. Credit: ITV/I'm A Celebrity

Packham dismissed I'm A Celebrity's use of consultants to advise on animal welfare, saying, "I can guarantee that some animals are harmed during production, because they are fragile or easily stressed. Or simply killed, as they are in your Bushtucker Trials."

Responding to Packham's letter, ITV said: