Circus set for Kilmarnock slams animal rights group

Jul 11 2008

A CIRCUS scheduled to visit Kilmarnock later this month has hit out at animal rights activists who have attacked its treatment of horses.

The latest circus controversy broke out only weeks after East Ayrshire Council voted to ban travelling circuses featuring wild or exotic animals from hiring council land for performances.

Zippo’s Circus, which will be at Kilmarnock’s Scott Ellis playingfields from July 24 to 27 escapes the ban because it uses horses, dogs and birds, but no wild animals.

Activist group Advocates for Animals had urged the council to impose a broader ban which would have affected all circuses using animals of any kind.

And they particularly singled out Zippo’s Circus, claiming that previous monitoring of the circus had revealed that horses were tethered on ropes so short that they were unable to lie down or turn around.

Said Libby Anderson, political director of Advocates for Animals: “The horses remained tethered until the end of the final show in the evening, apart from their brief performances during each of the shows.

“The investigator monitoring the circus noted that horses were sometimes tied up for over six hours.”

This week Zippo’s launched a spirited counter-attack on the claims of the anti-circus campaigners.

Circus spokesman Chris Baltrop described the allegations made by Advocates for Animals as “so transparently false as to be laughable”.

He said that the portable stabling used by the circus was purpose-built with the advice and approval of animal rights group Born Free.

Said Mr Baltrop: “Apart from the short journey times, when they are boxed up, our horses area always either paddocked or stabled. We work in parks and fields, not out on the highway.

“And our ethical training methods follow a strict code developed in conjunction with the International League for the Protection of Horses.”

Accusing the animal rights groups of “outlandish and exaggerated claims”, the circus spokesman said that they shared “the same motivations and of the same core membership as do groups seeking to reform society for their own ends”.

Mr Baltrop said: “To illustrate an aspect of those ends, recent correspondence with one of the world’s leading animal rights philosophers revealed his belief that ‘everyone should become a vegan’. One far-fethced thought process soon leads to another even more remote from normality.”

He said that the activists were trying to mislead politicians and deprive the public of free choice.

“We hear constantly from huge numbers of circus-goers that that’s the last thing they want,” he said.

“Zippo’s supports and practices the highest standards of animal care. Those standards are good for our animal partners and help protect one of the United Kingdom’s most-loved popular art-forms, the traditional animal circus.”

Meanwhile, Advocates for Animals praised East Ayrshire Council for its new policy.

Said Libby Anderson: “We congratulate East Ayrshire Council for banning circuses with wild animals on council land.

“We hope that in due course the council will consider extending this ban to include all animals, both wild and domesticated.”