Help Elyo, a circus lion covered in wounds
His brother Chirkane, the lion who had rebelled, has disappeared. Elyo is languishing in depression. We demand that he be entrusted to us.
A lion covered with wounds sufferers in his truck. We identify him as Elyo, he is the brother of Chirkane, the rebellious beast who assaulted his trainer in front of an audience during a show last year. We ask for his immediate removal, we are filing a complaint against the circus for acts of cruelty, both for Elyo the lonely and wounded lion and as well for the other animals which are also in very bad condition.
In lions, the brothers always team up together. When they leave their mother behind, it is in a group that they go on an adventure, never alone. And like Cecil, it is between brothers that they found a home and protected it from other males. At the circus, none of this is possible: the cubs are removed very young from their mother, any adventures are made in a truck and when a lion begins to behave like a real lion, it disappears.
Chirkane, like Tilikum among the wild beasts, had also assaulted his trainer on May 7th in Doullens, in front of a crowd of children who were petrified by the horror.
Where is he today? “In a zoo,” says the circus without specifying which one, while at first mentioned “wrongfully” that the lion had been put down. Or nowhere in the eyes of his brother, for whom Chirkane is dead… We intend to shed light on what happened to Chirkane. Without the companionship that he loved and a shoulder to lean against when Elyo fell asleep, his loss has real meaning. He is now all alone in the living hell of the traveling show which is the life of captive circus lions and this is from the cradle to the grave.
So yes, “this lion has been in very low spirits since he lost his companion,” according to that of a circus girl who was interviewed on video by the activists from “North is for circuses without animals” and “CLAC-Collective of Liberation of Animals in circuses“. During the passage of this circus through a small town in the Hauts de France, they discovered the big beast in very bad condition, at the bottom of his barred cage. His nose was damaged; temple, forehead and his eye brow bore multiple lesions.
The other animals also looked in bad shape. The pictures show us their dull, damaged coats, besieged by parasites. Some of them are extremely thin, while others – the so-called “domestic” herbivores – are attached within reach of hands on the bare lawn of a terrace in the city centre.
One Voice is indignant to the fate of these unfortunate animals and lodges a complaint against the circus, demanding immediate withdrawal of the wounded lion. We also ask the Prefect to make every effort to seize Elyo from the circus and we also propose to take charge of him. Finally, we write to the mayor of the city demanding him to ban circuses with animals in his commune and hoping that the exhibition of such miserable animals will make him fully understand the cruelty of this obsolete attraction. More than ever, One Voice is committed against the exploitation of animals in circuses!
Photos: The North is for circuses without animals