IRISH CIRCUS ABUSE

Animals in circuses live a life of restriction, cages, chains and constant transportation. All for a few minutes performing in the ring in the name of entertainment.

In the summer of 2006 the Captive Animals' Protection Society investigated animal circuses across Ireland to expose how the animals are treated and housed. A vet experienced in the behaviour and welfare of wild animals in captivity accompanied our investigators on some of these visits.

We found that many animals live restricted lives, confined to pens and cages, or chained by the legs; the circuses move on a regular basis (sometimes twice a week); some animals even face gruelling journeys of up to 1,000 miles from across Europe to appear in Irish circuses.

Our findings are revealed in a new 10-minute video containing footage from CAPS investigations at Irish circuses in 2006 and 2003. We have also produced two reports detailing the conditions the animals have to endure in the name of entertainment.

See http://www.irishcircuses.org/circuses_in_ireland.html
http://www.irishcircuses.org/roc/index.html

Duffys Circus has four Bengal and Siberian tigers, presented by Tommy Chipperfield. (Mary Chipperfield is well known in the business see http://www.youtube.com/user/mrfurrylover#play/uploads/3/9-xwKJgL534)
Duffy's Circus were criticised after using an elephant and alligators to promote the opening of a Dublin nightclub.
(Breaking News, 14 April 2005)

September 1995:
A man had both his arms ripped off by tigers at Duffy's Circus near Galway. The incident happened at 4am and the circus claimed the man had broken into the animals' trailer, reaching through a feeding gap under the bars to stroke them.
(Daily Express, 6 September 1999
Outside of the ring, the tigers are housed in a beastwagon a traditional circus lorry with cages built into it. The tigers have access to an exercise cage which is simply a small cage (approx 12 metres by 6 metres) attached to the lorry. While this meets minimum recommended sizes, the exercise area provides no real opportunity for exercise and has no obvious enrichment. Simple enrichment such as the ability to climb and areas for scratching and marking should be provided for captive tigers. The lack of such provisions could lead to abnormal (displacement) behaviours due to the inability to carry out normal behaviours.
Alligators

Duffys Circus has four alligators, used in an act that includes a display of large snakes. The alligators are taken into the ring in wooden boxes and allowed to walk around the ring.

When not used in the circus ring the alligators are housed in small enclosure built into a lorry. This clearly restricts their movements and natural behaviours such as hunting prey and building burrows.

It has been argued by PRO animal circus people that there are 2documents which support animals in circuses these are:
1) Defra Report into Animal welfare available here http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/welfare/pdf/circus-report.pdf (The report has 1major flaw it fails to take the training methods into consideration.
2) Report commissioned by RSPCA by Dr Marthe Kiley Worthington which again the remit was poor due to the fact her instuctions were to compare zoo animals to circus ones, as opposed to their wild counterparts. The report is available at http://www.zoocheck.com/campaigns_circuses_KileyWorthington.html
This report actually is quite damming of the circus industry and their animals.
Dr. Kiley-Worthingtons data showed that big cats were confined to their transport wagons over 90% of the time, where they had between 0.17 and 0.45 cubic metres of space per animal which the RSPCA considers a frighteningly small figure. Elephants were shown to be leg-shackled fore and hind on boards for over 60% of time, where Dr. Kiley-Worthington said they are able to lie down only with difficulty
But please read and make up your own mind

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Irish
• circus
• circuses
• thomas
• tommy
• Duffy
• Chipperfield
• abuse
• confinement
• adi
• caps

[mrfurrylover]

Good on you :-)

[mrfurrylover]

Good on you :-)

[irishveganboy]

Please support our campaigns to ban animal-act circuses! Boycott them!!!

[angelicnature1]

I will never go to a cirus nor bring my niece or nephew

[AccountSpawnedinHell]

TOM DUFFY'S CIRCUS IS WILL BE AT BLANCHARDSTOWN SHOPPING CENTRE FROM 10TH - 22ND OF MAY, PLEASE DON'T ATTEND THIS CIRCUS, YOU BUY THE TICKET, THE ANIMALS PAY THE PRICE.

[sonya28233]

C est toujours l etre humain qui fait m importe quoi juste pour gagner de l argent POURQUOI il y a pas de loies mondiale pour arreter ce cirque .Je participe en n allant pas au cirque zo pas d argent de ma part thankyou voor this video

[irishveganboy]

So damn cruel! Please boycott animal act circuses here in Ireland and help us fight for animal rights.

[animallover20101]

keep up the good work the more the public know about this the better.

[mrfurrylover]

Hiya

I fully 100% agree with you this time. I have

never said ban circuses, only ban circuses

which force animals to perform. I would be

more than happy to support all human

productions, and like you say there are some

great human entertainers out there.

Good call

[duckydanbarrett]

look i think what should be done is give the circuses in ireland who dont have animals some support like fossetts and corvenios maybe then some of the other circues touring could follow the foot steps and relize that all need is the amazing circus performers they alredy have also if you just say ban circus people wont listen say support the animal free circuses