Circus Animals

I love circuses. I recently watched Water for Elephants which I thought was a beautifully made film and the visuals of the circus was just beautiful. However, it made me think about the use of animals in the circus.

I think circuses are great and their entertainment is inventive and exciting. With or without animals I love the theme, atmosphere and style of circus'. However it is sometimes controversial to say that you like to watch a circus with animals. People often believe that circus' are cruel to animals, and I'm definitely not saying that some of them definitely aren't, and many of them were as there is definite evidence to prove this, but I read this piece yesterday that shone a new light.

in 2007 a different working group under the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, having reviewed information from experts representing both the circus industry and animal welfare, found an absence of "scientific evidence sufficient to demonstrate that travelling circuses are not compatible with meeting the welfare needs of any type of non-domesticated animal presently being used in the United Kingdom." According to that group's report, published in October 2007, "there appears to be little evidence to demonstrate that the welfare of animals kept in travelling circuses is any better or any worse than that of animals kept in other captive environments.

So yes, there is some evidence of cruelty but none more so than zoos or places like that where the cruelty is often overlooked just for the fact that they stay in one place and aren't trained to do tricks. But we don't mind that animals are trained for films and television programmes to perform tricks! I believe that sometimes the circus might even be better, they get to leave their cages sometimes, they get to feel real earth on their feet and it is something different each time which can be stimulating for their brains.

I'm not claiming to know loads about all this kind of stuff but these are my views. Argue all you want.