Lions and tigers have nothing to do with circuses!
Felines have nothing to do with circuses. Every night, this summer again in France, there have been too many futile roars!
Felines, whether lions or tigers have nothing to do with circuses. They are suffering while travelling in trucks on the roads, locked inside cages that move from morning to night, of which they barely leave and parked up commercial car parks. Experiencing hypermarkets and highways, high-speed turns, boxes that are called cages, this is not common to them in the jungles of Sumatra. Every night, this summer again in France, too many roars have pierced the night air!
No highway, no commercial parking zone in Western Europe evokes a lions’ flat savanna or grasslands of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, or Zimbabwe. And the same for the tigers, nothing reminds them of Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam or Indonesia…
And yet … the circus animal trainers using force still try to make us believe. As successors to the town criers, they repeat to whomever hears them cry that animals are like members of their family, that they love them. But what is it to love when you use force to separate the members of a family, when you use a whip to jump up or do something beautiful? What is love when we force tigers to live in a community when they are solitary beings? What is love when lionesses, who run for miles every day, are forced to stay in cages?
When the death rattle of lions becomes an order for action
This summer, one of our long-time members, deeply moved by the intense stress of these captive wild animals, contacted us.
After a quiet evening, the noises of trucks parking. The circus settles down. Did he make a request? Does he have an authorization? The big top is up in less time than it takes to say it. A circus is magic! The acrobats on their wires, the trapeze artists, the jugglers … What spectacle in this village! However. In the middle of the night, the dream is broken: a man hears cries in the night, roars of felines that have cracked touch a nerve. Until then, he was protecting himself, even avoiding viewing images in which we see animals suffering.
But this summer, near to his holiday spot, his whole heart wept to the sounds of lions and tigers calling out. The next day, several performances, between them, the eight captive lions sway back and forth in their cage, and each night, again their groans and roars, these calls in the silence … He contacted us, wanting to help them, it was the last straw…
“We must release them, it’s not possible!”
Circuses represent a permanent frustration for felines, incredibly intelligent and sensitive beings, and very good parents. To be shut up (Sultan is still waiting), to be trained (by force, do we really need to remind him?), To experience homelessness, to be dominated and exhibited, to risk one’s life if one escapes (remember de Mévy), to have her children snatched away: sold to other circuses or to private individuals, to be confronted with the constant noise and the loud lights of the shows … How not to go crazy? How not to develop stereotypical movements, these repetitive gestures which are symptomatic of their malaise?!
We count on you all!
Report to your town hall or council the circuses illegally installed in your community, propose to them our handbook to enable them to write a solid decree from the Mayor. Please sign our petition for circuses without animals. Lions, lionesses and tigers have nothing to do with circuses where they are exploited from birth to death. Sign our petition to free the five lionesses and baby lions, Bellone, Caroline, Mandela and Nelson!