From the track to the cage: the miserable life of animals in circuses
In the ring, animals are attacked from all sides. Bright lights, music, applause and screams are a source of great stress. But they must overcome it, and execute, under the threat of the trainer, tricks often unnatural, painful or frightening. Overcoming their fear of fire for felines, walking on their knees for the elephants, are exercises that they only accept to carry out for fear of punishment in case of disobedience...
When they leave the ring, they return to tiny cages or are parked in small pens, where they have nothing to do. The soil is very often hard and made of concrete or covered with dirty litter, most of the time without sufficient fresh water. Suffering from of isolation or overcrowding, regardless of their real needs, they become insane and locked in stereotyped behaviors, displayed over and over again. Then, in the trailers that transport them from town to town, they will endure temperature differences to such extent that frostbite are sometimes found on elephants’ ears.
Whether wild or domestic, all suffer the same miserable fate as long as they are able to perform in the show...
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19 years

Maya, an Asian elephant, has reached 49 years old, exhausted and suffering. She has been abused for 41 years by the circus… But considering animal shows, it is also our children who pay the consequences. They see it as a model of blind obedience, domination by violence, exploitation of the weak, denial of the identity of the animal, reduced to the state of a mere object dedicated to amusement.
The violent training of animals for the circus
There is neither respect nor complicity. Under the circus’ big top, there is only submission by violence. Blows and intimidations rain down to compel them to obey. They fear the trainer more than the pain or fear generated by the exercise they have to perform. The whip submits the felines; the use of a sharp spike is reserved for the elephants. Sometimes they are "broken", rebelling, or are too difficult to train. We then send them to a center where we try to make them "exploitable". The investigation made by One Voice revealed all behind the scenes.