Letter: Circus macabre

THE New Year has begun and circuses are touring this country.

Innocently, the general public are taking their children to support circus shows which include performing animals, unaware of the suffering that animals in Circuses are sure to endure.

Animals, which should be roaming through open countryside or swimming in open seas, are dragged from one end of the country to another, confined to beast-wagons.

They are chained inside tents or cordoned off in fields by circus owners hoping to make profits.

A life spent in confinement for monetary gain is not a life at all.

Circus animals show the same stereotypic repetitive behaviours that most other imprisoned animals show, such as pacing back and forth, chewing the bars of their cages and self-mutilation.

It is thought that these actions are caused by stress and frustration.

Would we allow a human to be imprisoned and held against it's will?

Yes, but as punishment. Why should we treat other species differently?

Animal circuses are not educational - they are barbaric and unnecessary.

Children should be taught to respect animals. The only way to stop this suffering is to bycott animal circuses.

Many countries throughout the world have either banned or put restrictions on wild animal circuses.

It's time that Ireland did the same.

C Long

Alliance forAnimal Rights.

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