Tiger, lion and elephant tamers need no longer apply

You might have missed the news. The famous and self-proclaimed "Greatest Show on Earth" has closed its doors after more than 146 years of operation.

Ironically April 15, just a month back was World Circus Day 2017 and May 31 will be the anniversary of John Ringling's birth in 1866.

While I empathise with the human performers, I don't mourn the passing of the big top circus with wild and domesticated animals performing tricks and committing absurd comic acts.

The need for a performing animal circus is a sad testament to how people feel that they need to be entertained especially in this day and age. While I accept and understand that the likes of Ringling Barnum and Bailey had their place in a world preceding global travel and the internet, they certainly seem out of step with what we expect and want in this modern age.

I recall my first visit to a big top circus in the 1970's. The travelling Boswell Wilkie Circus was regionally renowned and had many performing acts and an impressive brass band. I think even in those days, the awe was more focused on the faecal matter of the elephants and the loud crack of the ringmaster's whip than anything else. It doesn't take much to entertain children and these days it certainly doesn't require subjecting animals of any sort to incarceration and the indignity of having to perform circus acts.

If you had any doubts about the torment that circus animals endure, take a read of the considered 2016 briefing paper undertaken for the House of Commons, it is one of many related pieces on the topic undertaken by a great many organisations including the RSPCA, RSPCA Cymru, ISPCA, PETA and others. Interestingly, a number of European countries have now banned the use of wild and wild-born animals in circuses, including Estonia, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia and Greece. Other countries have bans on some species of wild animals in circuses e.g. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Hungary and Sweden.

In a recent BBC piece entitled "The Circus Leaves Town", it is pointed out that TV, Cinema and the internet has been "siphoning off Ringling’s audience for decades", and the animal rights movement has been actively working against captive animal performances since as far back as the 1980s. Since the complete discontinuance of Elephants in the shows since 2016, "circus attendance dropped precipitously".

I for one will not miss the passing of the travelling circus. To me, there is a seedy underbelly to such institutions characterised in the Francis Lawrence film Water for Elephants and even in the Disney animation Dumbo. While Dumbo is a caricature of the circus and circus life there are a great many truths held therein.

For those who consider it important that their children see and experience wild animals, consider the wilds themselves. Not a zoo, not a circus not a 'sanctuary'.

Though it is a little more spendy, a visit to a game reserve or national park will hold a long-term memory and experience that your children will remember and thank you for.

Elephants, lions and yes, tiger too, can be seen in the wild, not through bars, or held in cages and being prodded and cajoled into doing tricks! #emptythecages