Protests over circus animals

Animal activists in East London are again angry at a circus featuring live animal acts, but the owner of McLaren’s Circus said his lions and tigers had less stress than they would in the wild.

Armed with banners reading “captivity equals cruelty” and “Just because they are well fed, doesn’t mean they are not slaves”, a small group of protesters stand outside the entrance to Police Park half an hour before every performance.

McLaren Circus, which is in town until January 31, features acts involving four lions, four Bengal tigers, three camels, nine horses and ponies, a donkey, three Burmese pythons, two alligators and five dogs – all trained by King William’s Town-born circus owner and animal trainer David McLaren.

Former SPCA manager and inspector Sandy Taylor, who founded activist group East London Animal Warriors, stressed that protesters were not claiming that McLaren Circus animals were underfed or beaten.

“Our huge problem with this is the psychological torment and abuse they suffer. They are psychologically damaged.”

But McLaren, who showed a Daily Dispatch team around the enclosures, where the animals looked healthy and had access to water and shade, said if the animals were indeed experiencing psychological trauma they would stop eating and exhibit behaviour like pacing or refusing food.

Taylor said she was opposed to animals like lions and tigers being confined to small spaces and being trundled from city to city.

“In that tiny area they cannot behave as a species would do in the wild. A horse has to canter and gallop. Where do they do that?

“In the ring?”

McLaren countered this by saying many horses were kept in small stables all day.

“My horses get more exercise than show horses, for example, and my big cats have access to a 20m by 20m play area.”

But Taylor said this was not enough. “It’s giving them less space than a dog in a yard.”

She said performing animals had no educational value because their behaviour did not resemble that of animals in the wild.

“It is a humiliation they are forced to endure so we can clap and laugh, but they are not entertainment.”

McLaren said police dogs also performed in displays.

“What’s the difference? The protesters say it is not natural, but what is natural about a bird in a cage or a lion in a zoo or a dog being kept for personal pleasure?”

Taylor also questioned the safety aspect of circus animals, saying they felt resentment about being “under human control”.

“They are loose cannons and if there is an attack, will the animal be destroyed through no fault of its own?”

McLaren said he had never been attacked in seven years training his big cats. He said he used positive reinforcement techniques as well as a horse lunger for training and that his animals would be retired to a farm he plans to buy in Gauteng.

Taylor invited animal activists to protest between 7pm and 7.30pm tonight and between 2pm and 2.30pm tomorrow.

McLaren said even if he removed wild animal acts from the circus “they would still protest against domestic animal acts. I am an animal lover. I have to be to do what I do and my five dogs sleep with me every night.”