Four lionesses and a tigress locked in a circus trailer: Free Life and One Voice take legal action
In January 2023, in the Allier region, we investigated the conditions in which the animals exploited by the Ricardo Zavatta circus were kept. The lionesses and a tigress were vegetating in an empty trailer from which they never left, deprived of everything. Illegal acts and a source of great suffering for these felines. With our partner Free Life, we immediately filed a complaint against the Gougeon brothers. On Thursday November 14, at 9 a.m., we’ll face them at the Bourges legal tribunal.
At the start of 2023, we spent six days investigating the Ricardo Zavatta circus when it was in the Allier region. We discovered four lionesses and a white tigress with skin problems, all penned in a trailer. Like the tigers we rescued from Mario Masson’s clutches after nearly two years of investigation, they had no access to the outside world at any time, forced to turn round and round endlessly to survive the intense stress of confinement. What about the “relaxation” park where they should be able to relieve their numb limbs for at least four hours a day? In almost a week, the circus owners have not installed it once, in flagrant violation of regulations. Other shortcomings: the felines were not provided with scratching posts or facilities for climbing to heights or bathing. Nothing to help them out of their suffering, to the point where they were reduced to trying to scratch the bars… On their behalf, we filed a complaint with our partner Free Life.
Control and seizure finally organized…
Unsurprisingly, the trainers left the region after we took legal action. It wasn’t until June 2023, when the Gougeon brothers had set up illegally in the town of Santranges, in the Cher region, that the French Biodiversity Agency inspected the circus. The inspectors found everything we had been denouncing for the past six months. Not only did the animals still have no access to the outside world, but some were not even identified, leaving the door open to all kinds of trafficking… A rare event: the lionesses and the tigress were finally seized by the authorities and placed in a refuge.
…while other animals are still going through hell
How long have they been suffering like this, trapped alive? The passing of the November 2021 law failed miserably to put an end to the ordeal of animals exploited by trainers. The breeding of wild animals, which was supposed to have been banned on December 1, 2023, is going as well as ever, and the authorities are turning a blind eye to our efforts to ensure that Samba and Jumbo are placed in a sanctuary before they die, like Dumba, or are sent abroad to places to die, like Baby. We will not abandon them in the face of these laws, which are systematically flouted without any reaction from the authorities!
On November 14, at 9 a.m., we’ll be at the Bourges legal tribunal to speak out on behalf of the four lionesses and the tigress mistreated by the Gougeon brothers. We demand that they be definitively confiscated and that they be given the right to retire in an environment that respects their needs.
The hearing has been postponed and will be held at a later date (currently undefined).