McCartney: 'Bambi Made Me Fight For Animal Rights'

Sir Paul McCartney credits classic animated Disney characters Bambi and Dumbo with spurring him on to champion animal rights.

The former beatle, who is a strict vegetarian and supporter of pressure group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), realised cruelty inflicted on animals was wrong when he saw the way humans behaved in the Disney cartoons.

He says, "If you think of Bambi, it's mum gets killed by a hunter and I think that made me grow up thinking hunting isn't cool.

"You look through a lot of these great stories: Dumbo - his mum is quite badly treated.

"Kids, as I once was, have grown up feeling it's a bad idea to be cruel to animals."