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SAY NO to ANIMALS IN CIRCUSES
The issues How you can help
The issues
Have you ever stopped to consider the life of a circus animal: chained, caged, forced to live in cramped and totally unsuitable housing, and hauled from town to town in a “beast wagon”?
The RSPCA believes that this is wrong.
All animals have certain requirements, which need to be met for their sense of well-being. Regardless of the number of generations that wild animals have been in captivity, captive-born wild animals do not lose the instincts and needs of wild animals. They retain their natural instincts to socialise and to roam freely. Circuses deny captive-born wild animals of their need to exhibit their natural behaviours.
Large animals such as elephants, lions and tigers need a large amount of space to be able to move around and to socialise with their own kind. In the wild, elephants may travel 40 kilometres a day, mud bathe and live in social groups. In a circus, elephants are chained or confined to a small space and are only able to stand up, lie down or shuffle a few paces backwards and forwards. Lions and tigers are shut in their beast wagons for over 90% of the time. They, too, need to be able to socialise and roam freely.
Wild circus animals often show their distress through abnormal behaviour, also known as displacement activity. This can take the form of constant swaying, bobbing, weaving or pacing up and down.
When released from their confinement, it is only to perform unnatural acts for the entertainment of the audience.
The RSPCA is opposed to the use of exotic animals in circuses.
There is no justification for the use of such animals in circuses, as there are no education, research or conservation benefits to the practice.
The RSPCA's greatest concern is the disparity between the conditions imposed on wild animals by circus life and the environment that these animals need for their well-being. Life in the wild cannot be replicated on the back of transportation trucks or at circus sites around the country.
The RSPCA's main concerns for circus animals are:
· Continual transportation.
· Continual confinement.
· Unnatural social groups.
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