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At the Nouveau Cirque Triomphe, lions breed instead of being sent to a sanctuary…

At the Nouveau Cirque Triomphe, lions breed instead of being sent to a sanctuary…

At the Nouveau Cirque Triomphe, lions breed instead of being sent to a sanctuary…
04.11.2021
At the Nouveau Cirque Triomphe, lions breed instead of being sent to a sanctuary…
Circuses

Since June 22, 2021, the Nouveau Cirque Triomphe has been forbidden to keep any feline. And yet, at the beginning of October in Jons, our investigators filmed a mating between a lion and a lioness. This shows the extent to which circus performers, and Joseph Gougeon in particular, cousin of the circus performers from Cirque de Paris, Italiano and Idéal, ignore official orders and do as they please all the time. Breeding is actually happening in this circus and it’s not its first criminal act: last year alone, it sold a lion to a taxidermist in Paris, and holds a lion with the same identification number as Jon, even though he had been seized from the Cirque de Paris several months earlier! We’re stepping up our administrative procedures.

If our representatives think that by allowing breeding to continue for another two years, they are making compromises and allowing circus performers to “adapt”, what they are really doing is allowing the trade in big cats to continue! Circus performers already benefit from compromises, conscientiously ignoring the regulations that apply to their trade.

Tougher proceedings against a circus that continues to trample on the rules

After our investigators discovered in October that the circus was indeed keeping four lions, despite the partial closure order, we filed an additional complaint (for carrying on an activity in violation of a closure order).

We also wrote to the Rhône DDPP, the department of the prefecture responsible for captive wild animals on its territory, requesting written proof of the death of the lion, who died on February 16, 2021 and was sent to the Parisian taxidermist.

As part of our appeal to the administrative court in June 2021, the prefecture has initiated a procedure to have the lions placed in a suitable structure, but if Gougeon has appealed as it is said, he could keep them in the meantime, as long as they are not presented in a show… Yet the prefectoral decree has not been challenged in the administrative court by the circus.

In any case, we have reinforced our appeal with a supplementary brief for these lions. And since the Rhône DDPP says that the National advisory commission for captive wildlife is due to meet and rule on Gougeon’s application for a competency certificate, we’ve written to the Commission. It’s mind-boggling! We wouldn’t allow a quarter of what circus performers dare to do to any other citizen. We demand to be heard on the serious and numerous failures and unwillingness of the trainer to comply with the regulations.

These lions and lionesses must be entrusted to us!

These animals are being mistreated and kept in absolutely abject conditions. This circus should no longer keep felines! But what we filmed a few weeks ago in October were animals in the process of reproducing. So there are going to be more babies?! Who are once again going to feed the traffic… This is all very lucrative for the circus, but totally illegal and scandalous. Muriel Arnal President of One Voice

Following these new elements, we are writing another letter to the prefect, this time to ask him to seize the animals and entrust them to us. Sign the Brindas residents’ petition, already supported by over 20,000 people.

At the Muller Circus, tiger cubs are born, exhibited and then disappear year after year…

At the Muller Circus, tiger cubs are born, exhibited and then disappear year after year…

At the Muller Circus, tiger cubs are born, exhibited and then disappear year after year…
03.11.2021
At the Muller Circus, tiger cubs are born, exhibited and then disappear year after year…
Circuses

In October 2021, whistleblowers alerted us to the fact that the Muller family, the owners exploiting Jumbo, were exhibiting a tiger cub to the public, and even allowing them to be touched. Our investigators went to the site and found two of them. This constitutes mistreatment and an offense. And what’s happening to the cubs? We are lodging a new complaint against the circus and putting the Drôme DDPP on notice.

Circuses are supposed to obey rules. In this case, it’s the decree of March 18, 2011. Each trainer has a license for certain animal species, and a maximum number is set. Muller has for instance a hippopotamus, Jumbo, and tigers. But not everything is allowed! These animals must all participate in the show (which is often far from being the case), otherwise why subject them to transport and confinement in cage trucks? As for the shows themselves, they must follow certain rules: no exhibition of tiger cubs, for example, in the decree authorizing the opening of this circus! But that’s exactly what our investigators witnessed! Cubs just a few weeks old, separated from their mothers at an early age, dragged brusquely from their cages by one paw, then groped by the audience.

Welfare, safety and health: trampled underfoot by trainers

Handling tiger cubs in particular is totally contrary to the well-being of the babies, but a simple separation is already a problem for both the cubs and their mother.

Such interactions are strictly forbidden. For safety reasons, of course, but also for health reasons: diseases, known as zoonoses when they are transmissible from one species to another, can be transmitted. What the Muller Circus is doing even goes against the recommendations of the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA).

How, under such conditions, can we expect children to see animals – particularly tigers, whose species is disappearing – as anything other than objects at their disposal? How can we hope to protect the planet if nature is objectified in this way?

For the baby tigers and their mother, we have lodged a complaint against the circus for mistreatment by an operator, irregular exploitation and detention methods likely to cause suffering.

What happens to the babies? Do they feed the traffic?

What’s more, as we’ve already said in other cases, we’re deeply concerned about the fate of these babies. At Parc Saint Léger, at Mario Masson‘s, at Triomphe, Paris, Idéal or Gougeon cousins’ Italiano circuses: what happens to the babies after a few weeks? A few months? After all, circuses cannot exceed the number of felines authorized in each opening decree. And although the births are always described as “unusual”, there are still some every year. What happens to them, then, since circus performers have to give them up, or even get rid of them, on pain of being fined?

We are also putting the Drôme prefecture (DDPP department) on notice to find out how many births have taken place in this circus, and what has happened to the animals. The bill on animal mistreatment (PPL Animaux) only provides that breeding be prohibited in traveling circuses within two years. This will do nothing to help these baby big cats, victims of this and other forms of trafficking, such as ending up in a taxidermist’s shop where their remains are sold for tens of thousands of euros!

Two proceedings are therefore underway: one criminal, the other administrative.

France, champion of animal experimentation: grey mouse lemurs in sight

France, champion of animal experimentation: grey mouse lemurs in sight

France, champion of animal experimentation: grey mouse lemurs in sight
04.10.2021
France, champion of animal experimentation: grey mouse lemurs in sight
Animal testing

Researchers in France are still conducting experiments on primates. Specifically, in its branch in Brunoy (Essonne), the French National Museum of Natural History has the largest breeding centre for mouse lemurs in the world. The animals are kept purely to be cut up for science.

Photo: © Gerald Cubitt / Photoshot / Biosphoto

France is renowned for its culture, its intellectuals, its historic towns and villages and its beautiful landscapes… Take Brunoy, in Essonne, for example. Although tensions in some of the surrounding housing estates can sometimes lead to unrest, the centre of this residential suburb retains at least part of its historic heritage, with magnificent buildings and plenty of green space giving rise to its reputation and its charm.

A centre of excellence

This is the setting within which scientists from the National Museum of Natural History (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle – MNHN) have, for some fifty years, been carrying out specialist research in the fields of forest ecology and adaptive strategies of living organisms, on the site of the Petit Château, an 18th century mansion.

Primates destined for experiments

It is a fine programme – on paper! However, the walled grounds, now closed to the public, are currently home to the largest primate breeding centre in the world, a community of nearly 500 small lemurs. Their name in English is ‘grey mouse lemur’; in French ‘microcèbe mignon’, meaning ‘charming lemur’, while the Latin name is ‘microcebus murinus’. They are kept for use in animal experiments. Mixed teams of scientists from the MNHN, the CNRS and other research institutes really love these descendants of animals caught in Madagascar, particularly because their small size makes them as easy to handle as mice while they have ‘much more in common with humans than the classic rodent models’.

From observation to euthanasia

This represents a great opportunity for laboratory technicians, who subject them to batteries of tests. These include ‘simple’ behavioural studies, which nevertheless sometimes, as here, consist of leaving the animals in darkness or making days and nights shorter in order to reduce their lifetimes. However, other experiments can be much more invasive, as part of research on inflammation of the eyes, pancreatic lesions, or the development of tumours as part of ageing. Research in neuroscience, in particular on the structure of the brain, cognitive abilities and Alzheimer’s disease, causes terrible suffering to the subjects, which are usually put to sleep afterwards.

Ill-treatment before decapitation

One of the worst studies our team of scientists knows of focused on the ability of grey mouse lemurs to enter torpor to adapt to their environmental conditions. Apparently harmless on the face of it, in practice this study involved keeping individual animals in isolation without enough food for several days. They were then all decapitated and samples were taken from their corpses, frozen and sent to Canada. This is because the MNHN, not content with conducting its own experiments, also offers its ‘materials’ (in this case, lemurs) and its ‘services’ to scientific researchers throughout the world. It even has a website, called IBiSA, which offers ‘services and equipment’ useful to foreign laboratories keen on small lemurs.

An insatiable appetite

So, France is once again standing out as a result of its ferocious appetite for animal experiments, especially on primates. It makes every effort to increase its reputation in this respect at international level. The MNHN has even stated its ambition to renovate its premises and to take early action to extend its animal house to house 800 lemurs. There are more studies and more suffering to come… We have recently written three letters, to the President of the MNHN, the Director of the Essonne department DDPP [whose responsibilities include animal protection], and the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, asking them to disclose all documents relating to the MNHN centre for the breeding and use of animals for scientific research in Brunoy. A spotlight needs to be shone on what is happening there, and on the suffering of the grey mouse lemurs.

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