AR-News: (Italy) Animals Mistreated for the Three-Ring Show

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

_http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=24457_ 
(http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=24457)  
 
Francesca Colombo* 




ROME, Jul 1  (Tierramérica) - Dancing bears, ball-balancing seals, an 
elephant that stands on  its head, and lions and tigers that jump through flaming 
hoops are among the  attractions at circuses in Italy and around the world. But 
behind these  acrobatics is suffering and abuse, say animal rights activists. 

Animal defence organisations are demanding a ban on the use of  animals in 
such spectacles, but circus owners argue that it would put an end to  their 
business. 

There are 130 circuses in Italy, the most in Europe.  They are run by 60 
families and involve 1,300 captive animals. 

Animal  rights activists say that many of these circus stars are subjected to 
beatings,  whippings, electrical charges and starvation, and are often 
drugged.  

''These animals live in poor conditions and the training techniques are  
cruel and violent. The government does little to regulate the activity of  
trainers,'' Giovanni Guadagna, head of the circus campaign for the Italian  animal 
rights league, LAV, told Tierramérica. 

Circus animals live in  worse conditions than the animals in zoos. They are 
kept in small cages and  travel thousands of kilometres with the circus, are 
kept in the dark and not  provided sufficient water, according to the activist. 

In 2003, the  attorney general of Reggio de Calabria, in southern Italy, 
issued a condemnation  of the Luana Orfei circus for keeping 13 tigers (including 
three cubs), a  hippopotamus, seven seals, a horse, a pony, three bears and 
two buffalo in cages  considered too small. 

The Nando Orfei circus was fined in 2003 for  keeping four elephants tied up 
with metal chains in conditions harmful to the  giant mammals' health. 

The director of the Liana Orfei circus says  hyenas cannot be trained even if 
they are beaten a hundred times, and seals will  only respond if they are 
made to go hungry because their skin is too delicate to  withstand beatings. 

''We condemn and denounce those who mistreat  animals, because we want them 
to have the best possible life. But a circus  without animals would be absurd. 
The ones that have tried have gone bankrupt,''  Antonio Girola, spokesman for 
the European Circus Association, said in a  Tierramérica interview. 

Animals kept in cages and under constant  pressure develop behavioural 
disorders: tigers will walk only in circles, horses  constantly shake their heads, 
and elephants incessantly shift their weight from  foot to foot. 

Experts say that the chimpanzee's ''smile'' is really an  expression of tensi
on, as is the mad dash animals make for their cages once they  have performed 
in the circus ring. 

Liana Orfei recounts how in the  Italian summer of 2003, when the circus was 
set up on the southern beaches of  Puglia, Jennie the elephant was tied up in 
the normal way. When she saw the  Mediterranean Sea, however, she seemed to go 
mad. She broke her chains and ran  into the water, standing in the water a 
metre deep for two days, refusing to  leave despite threats and lack of food. 

In 1997, an elephant from the  Errani circus killed her trainer, an elephant 
from the Medrano circus threw a  child into the air, and another from the 
Williams circus broke its chains and  ran through Rome, causing a great deal of 
damage. 

The Convention on the  International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild 
Fauna and Flora (CITES), which  Italy has signed, put an end to trafficking of 
threatened animals for circuses.  Traffickers reportedly would kill groups of up 
to 15 chimpanzees in the wild in  order to capture one. 

''We have seized an illegal gorilla, elephants,  tigers and leopards. Most of 
these animals showed abnormal behaviour, had health  problems and were fed 
such things as spaghetti and chocolate'' instead of  appropriate animal feed, 
CITES official Ugo Mereu told Tierramérica. 

''A  chimpanzee wearing a vest would not let us remove it. And when we took a 
gorilla  to the Rome zoo, the gorilla there was terrified because he had 
never seen  another one of his species,'' Mereu said. 

Circuses receive government  aid because they are considered cultural 
attractions, but ''the spectacle is not  educational. It is a dangerous model of 
learning that could change the way  children see their relations with animals,'' 
because it suggests that ''human  domination and power over the weak is 
acceptable,'' says LAV activist Ilaria  Marucelli. 

(* Francesca Colombo is a Tierramérica contributor.  Originally published 
Jun. 26 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the  Tierramérica network. 
Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS  with the backing 
of the United Nations Development Programme and the United  Nations Environment 
Programme.)  

(END/2004)
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"Look deep  into the eyes of any animal, and then for a moment, trade places, 
their life  becomes as precious as yours and you become as vulnerable as 
them. Now smile if  you believe all animals deserve our respect and our 
protection, for in a way,  they are us, and we are them." -
Philip Ochoa Board Member, ALL FOR ANIMALS  
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