Today we’d like to introduce you to Benay Karp.
Hi Benay, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I began working with animals in the early 80s, dog walking, cleaning kennels, and learning about dog training. In the later part of the 80s, I started to do more work with birds and started volunteering at the Wildlife Waystation with the baby orphaned birds and animals. This is when I started to learn more about training smaller exotics and wildlife and when I was asked by a trainer to assist on a TV show. And that is when I decided that this was the career for me. However, work for animal companies in the entertainment industry (other than cleaning cages) was not easy to find without connections-and at the time I did not have any. I found out what most of the animal companies specialized in and decided to focus my training on more unique birds and animals to try and carve my own niche. At the time, there was not a lot of trained squirrels, skunks, and wild-type birds like bluejays, woodpeckers, or hummingbirds. So that is what I focused on.
I called around to the local animal companies and tried to get work, hoping my specialty animals would get my foot in the door. I did get the occasional job-but not enough to support myself. And so I decided to start my own company, specializing in wild-type birds and small wildlife.
Over the years I have been very lucky to work on hundreds of tv shows, commercials, movies, music videos, etc. with my own animals as well as some of the best trainers and their animals in the world. I have a fantastic team of people who work for me helping in the care, enrichment, and training of my animals.
Some fun shows I worked on include Friends (I supplied all the animals on the show), The Voice, LA Law, Grace and Frankie, House of Cards, CSI-just too many to mention. But please visit my IMDb page for more https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0439917/
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
This was a very difficult profession to get into-and when I first started; it was a male-dominated industry with many (excellent) female trainers but no other female-owned animal training companies. I had a lot of resistance to being accepted as a company owner.
As you know, we’re big fans of Benay’s Bird and Animal Source. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Basically though – I have been providing professionally trained Hollywood animal actors and trained birds for the Entertainment Industry since 1987. In addition, I also provide trained animals for advertising, print, parties, and corporate/private events. My animals have even been a part of marriage proposals, weddings, and baby showers.
Although I can offer dozens of professionally trained dogs and cats, opossums, skunks, foxes, raccoons, coyotes, wolves (and well, so many more….) I am most well known for having the largest and most diverse collection of trained birds in the industry. From owls/hawks/vultures to blue jays, seagulls, starlings and many types of songbirds
Most of the above animals are very hard to come by and come with very strict regulations -my company and I are fully (federal, state, and county) licensed and permitted facilities, and although located in Southern California, I have friends and affiliates across the country and animal friends and contacts around the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: BenaysAnimals.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/BenaysBirdandAnimals/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BenaysBirdAnimalRentals
- Twitter: IMDb https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0439917/?ref_=nv_sr_3
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqyUmWo1jJXx_1tGigrcuAA
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFRwZpdFw-jZ8CwGNMhz5Dw My second youtube
