Circus animals (From The Argus)

Circus animals

11:30pm Tuesday 5th July 2011 in Your Argus

SOME readers may remember the story of Anne the elephant who, earlier this year, was shown to be suffering abuse at the hands of her groom at a UK circus.

The public were horrified, and hundreds took to the street to protest outside the circus.

Thousands of people were motivated to write to their MPs and urge them to introduce a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses.

It seemed that the Government was listening, and in May Defra announced that they were “to pursue a ban”.

However, the Government u-turned and announced it would be introducing a regulatory system instead.

Not only would this system fail to protect animals currently in circuses, it would put other animals at risk of being introduced in the future.

Animal welfare organisations were certain a regulatory system wasn’t enough to protect wild animals and thankfully the public agreed.

MPs received thousands of letters from people calling for a ban and, recently, the House of Commons voted unanimously in support of a ban being introduced by July next year.

Without those who wrote, emailed or spoke to their MP on this issue, victory would not have been possible.

Thank you to everybody who got involved in this important campaign.

We now hope to ensure the Government honours the vote and introduces a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses.

In the meantime, vote with your feet and boycott circuses featuring wild animals.

Fiona Peacock, The Captive Animals’ Protection Society