Jumbo in great distress: a wildlife veterinarian sounds the alarm
On 27 and 28 December 2025, One Voice once again filmed the hippopotamus Jumbo while the Muller-Zavatta circus, where he has been held captive for nearly forty years, was setting up in Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne). The report by the veterinary expert who studied these images is unequivocal: Jumbo is suffering terribly. The association is once again filing a complaint against his torturers and calling on animal rights activists to write to the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
At forty years old, Jumbo is still being exploited by the trainers who have made him the star attraction of their business. When he is not locked in his metal trailer or left alone to pace around in a makeshift enclosure, he is laboriously dragged onto the circus ring, transformed against his will into a freak show animal delivered to the crowd of spectators. As an amphibious hippopotamus, he should be spending sixteen hours a day in the warm waters of the rivers from which he was torn as a youngster. The vet who has viewed our latest videos does not hide his concern. Jumbo is in bad shape. Suffering from a degenerative joint disease and severely overweight (one tonne too heavy), he struggles to walk, and the cold is likely to exacerbate his pain. Worse still, the wildlife specialist describes the hippopotamus as “one of the most serious cases of animal abuse in captivity [he has] ever seen”.
Ten years of relentless campaigning
Since 2016, we have been tracking Jumbo’s movements in the south of France, investigating tirelessly, timing the little time he spends outside the lorry where he is locked up, filming and photographing his conditions of detention in order to better denounce them… Every year, we have increased the number of demonstrations and appeals to the authorities, filing numerous complaints of mistreatment. In 2019, we finally managed to organise his rescue. Faced with the violence of the circus staff, the authorities decided to cancel the confiscation… Since then, we have not given up, continuing to gather evidence against those who exploit Jumbo.
The government has abandoned the animals
While we fight tirelessly for him, the state has continued to spit in the face of the animals it claimed to defend when it passed the law against animal abuse in November 2021. From the outset, the ambitions were weak: exclusion of domestic animals from the law, a ban on the keeping of wild animals only for travelling circuses and only from 2028 onwards… Since then, the government has done much worse. Dismissing our proposal to help circus performers retrain, it prefers to pay them to continue keeping animals, without offering them any alternative accommodation. The icing on the cake is that these jailers, handsomely paid with taxpayers’ money, will only have to settle down to continue their abuse… and even their shows!
We are filing a new complaint against the Muller-Zavatta circus for all the cruelty it inflicts on Jumbo. You too can call on the Ministry of Ecological Transition by writing to them*. And sign our petition to save Jumbo!
*A template letter is available at the following link. It can be sent by post to the address indicated, or directly online.