Leave animals alone (From Bucks Free Press)

Leave animals alone

10:58am Friday 15th May 2009 in Your Letters

RE: Wycombe District Council’s recent decision to lift the ban on animal circuses performing on council-owned land.

TWO thirds of the British public want to see an end to all circuses with animals.

It is therefore an incredibly disappointing retrograde step for Wycombe councillors to ignore animal welfare considerations for the sake of so-called entertainment.

Circus animals are continually transported from place to place, kept in inadequate conditions, unnatural social environments and forced to perform in a degrading and unnatural manner for our entertainment.

The fact that an animal is of a domesticated species does not mean that it will suffer any less than a wild animal.

This kind of exploitation has no place in the 21st Century.

Seeing animals in circuses does not provide a realistic educational tool for children as the animals are forced to perform tricks and live in conditions that are not natural for them.

The animals are in an environment drastically different from their natural habitats.

And often their spirits are broken from harsh training and from not being able to fulfil some of their most basic needs and instincts.

The idea of publicly humiliating an animal to prove that man is capable of this kind of dominance is not fun.

Children should be taught to respect animals and circuses teach the opposite.

How can we consider ourselves civilised whilst we continue to allow the suffering of animals, simply for entertainment?

If you care about animals, help achieve the only compassionate conclusion: Please don’t visit the circus that is coming to Wycombe later this month and encourage your friends, family and school to do the same.

To prevent this happening again, please write to the council expressing your disappointment and asking them to ban all future animal circuses from their land.

Please write to the Minister for Animal Welfare, Jane Kennedy MP and ask for a ban on all animals in circuses. (Defra, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3JR).

Join our “Stop the Circus Coming to High Wycombe” Facebook Group.

We applaud trapeze artists, jugglers, clowns, tightrope walkers, and acrobats, but let’s leave animals in peace – they are not here for our entertainment.

Kim Pearce, address supplied, High Wycombe.