The lion and tiger trade is a very fruitful business
Trafficking relating to wild animals is third worldwide after weapons and drugs. Now we know the rumours about circuses: babies that are born and replaced by others that are just as young (at the Parc Saint Léger and Parc Saint Paul), the lions that we are following who suddenly disappear (Sultan), or even the trainers who don’t officially carry out reproduction but keep a male that is “not in the same bloodline” or keep males and females in the same cages year-round (Mario Masson’s ten tigers in a lorry), and the record logs which are accidentally misplaced…
The starting point for our investigation…
This latest case is the starting point for the investigation, for which we are revealing the results today. In Spring 2021, a report carried out by the Rhône prefecture’s veterinary services states that, during their visit to Joseph Gougeon’s Nouveau Triomphe Circus, they observed that the formal notice from October 2019 has still not been respected: the number of lions being kept was higher than the maximum allowed, there were insufficient housing capabilities, the management of the medication storage was poor… as well as a failure to identify the lions, one of which wore Jon’s identification number, despite him having been taken away from Steve Gougeon since June 2020!
Delivery of a lion’s remains with an unlicenced taxidermist…
The report concludes with Gougeon’s statement to the Rhône prefecture: the remains of a dead lion have been entrusted to a taxidermist.
After verification by the prefecture, this taxidermist would not be authorised or approved under the European regulation establishing the health rules applicable to animal by-products and derived products not intended for human consumption.
We have therefore investigated… starting with the Nouveau Triomphe Circus. And we have appealed against the prefect’s decision.
The survey has led us to a dealer of stuffed animals
Our investigators visited the dealer of products deriving from captive wild animals. His shop on the Puces de Saint-Ouen is always open, unlike those on avenue Georges V, where Claudia Cardinale once posed in front of a stuffed polar bear. You are welcomed by a stuffed bear cub (the animal skins aren’t stuffed with straw but with polystyrene, a much more ‘natural’ process…) surrounded by hunting trophies as well as giraffe necks and sordid staged items such as a doe’s head made up with hair rollers…
These animals are from the circus!
Using the pretence of wanting to buy a lioness skin, then a lion skin, our investigators were able to obtain valuable information.
The boss boasts about being friends with the Gruss family and with Éric Bormann, an eponymous circus trainer who shot Mévy the young tigress in Paris, about having gone on safaris, and about having repeatedly let wild animals roam free at parties or even within the flea market… he implies that veterinarians can always justify the need to euthanise a big cat from the circus, before condemning the fact that the market is dwindling with the planned end for wild animals in circuses.
Our investigators relayed their experience:
Comments 37
Jocelyne | Saturday 09 October 2021
Laurence | Saturday 09 October 2021
Guylou | Friday 08 October 2021
Mo | Friday 08 October 2021