SIR – The RSPCA is asking for urgent support to encourage your local MP to attend a debate and vote for a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses tomorrow.
A backbench debate at the House of Commons will take place to raise this issue and urge the Government to rethink its strategy for licensing the use of wild animals in circuses. It is vitally important as many MPs as possible attend and vote.
The RSPCA believes wild animals shouldn’t be used in circuses and that no other animals should have to endure circus life like Anne the elephant and others have done. Polls show the majority of the public agree, and 94 per cent of those who responded to the consultation supported a ban.
It is clearly wrong for animals like elephants, tigers and lions to be housed in enclosures far too small for them and to spend most of the summer season being moved from site to site.
For most of the day they are housed in enclosures a quarter of the size of those recommended in zoos, or even tethered to pegs in the ground, unable to move more than a few metres.
David Bowles, director of communications, RSPCA, Wilberforce Way, Southwater
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