Victims of a misleading and incomplete law, lion cubs continue to be born at Claudio Zavatta Circus
The Animal Abuse Act of November 2021 promised to ban the breeding of wild animals in traveling establishments by December 1, 2023. Nine months later, nothing has been done to implement this measure. In the cages of the Claudio Zavatta circus, new lion cubs have appeared, probably born during the summer, and filmed in Le Gua by our investigators in September. The circus owners don’t care about being outside the law, the government is letting them get away with it, trampling on its commitments and duping the citizens. One Voice has lodged a complaint against the circus with the public prosecutor’s department in La Rochelle, and we are ready to take in the lions in the event of seizure.
“These circuses want to get animals over with, but they can’t find anyone to adopt their lions.” It was in this press article with a maudlin headline that circus trainers wallowed in self-pity this summer. They swore by their good faith, saying that they were moving heaven and earth to find new homes for their felines before 2028, when they will, in theory, no longer be allowed to transport trained wild animals from town to town. Are they trying to make us believe they’re at the forefront of the fight to end the exploitation of wild animals? The same ones they’ve never stopped keeping locked up?
Supposedly illegal, reproduction continues
In recent weeks, however, young lion cubs have been attracting curious onlookers to the cages of the Claudio Zavatta circus in Le Gua, Charente-Maritime, reminiscent of the tiger cubs the Mullers exhibited in 2021. Are these animals really a “burden” for the circus? Not really, since it continues to breed them.
State complicity in the ordeal of captive wild animals
So they trample on the law. And why shouldn’t they, when the government does the same? Almost three years after the law was passed, the decree implementing the breeding ban has still not been published. Nothing has been done, except to lull public opinion to sleep, to convince citizens that the animals had been saved, all the better to continue subjecting them to confinement and exploitation until they die.
In 2028, what will become of the tigers and lions still confined behind bars? What will become of Samba and Jumbo, if they have not succumbed like Dumba before them? Are they destined to end up in the hands of taxidermists who line the pockets of circus performers? Or will they be sent to undignified facilities abroad, where their torment will continue unabated, like Baby? Thanks to the inaction of the State, which seems in no hurry to offer new accommodation solutions, the establishments that choose to settle down won’t even have to ask themselves the question: they’ll be able to keep their animals, as if nothing had happened.
We’re not going to let this happen, and filed a complaint against the Claudio Zavatta circus on September 20, backed up by on-site investigation images. In the event of seizure, we are at the disposal of the authorities to take charge of the detained lions, lionesses and lion cubs.