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2. ENDANGERED SPECIES – IN ABUNDANCE

2.4   The Beast Wagon

Trucked around Australia during the blistering hot summer of 1987 was a troupe of Siberian brown bears, owned by one of the 70 units of the Moscow State Circus. Their star turn in the ring saw them walk a tightrope suspended 6 metres above the ground at an angle of 45 degrees. The once proud animals, ranging in age from 2 to 10 years, were dressed in sailor suits and from the neck of one of the youngest bears swung a outsized baby's dummy. Following this colourful spectacle, the animals were returned to their "living quarters" - cages just one metre square. Few members of any circus audience will care to realise that performing animals such as these spend much of their entire lives cooped-up in containers or crates in which they are scarcely able to turn. In the Australian heat wave, the Russian bears were understandably reluctant to return to their containers, but by all accounts their protests were met only with contempt and harsh treatment by their handlers. Only demonstrations by animal welfare groups in Sydney and Melbourne eventually forced the Circus to rehouse the bears in larger cages. Said Wayne Stevens, a spokesman for the promoters, Michael Edgley International: "Public opinion seems to be changing and I dare say we have to be adaptable enough to change with it when it is required." Even that grudging change however was only temporary: the Russians have traditionally used such minuscule cages ever since the days of Peter the Great. In August 1988, the Toronto Humane Society gave another unit of the Moscow State Circus 48 hours to find bigger cages for its 12 performing bears or face criminal charges. The bears, declared the Society, were being "psychologically tortured" by their confinement. Revealing once again the hidden sordidness of the rose-tinted illusion, the 15-city tour through the USA and Canada, with 200 scheduled performances, was sponsored by 'SNUGGLE', a fabric conditioner produced by Lever Brothers Corporation, their endearing marketing symbol being a cuddly teddy bear. These animals "do the tricks out of love and not out of fright," asserted the bears' trainer. Yet it is reported that in Las Vagas two members of the audience accidentally witnessed an incident behind stage in which one disobedient animal was struck with what appeared to be a steel rod. Nevertheless, the Russian bear tamers did find some friends amongst American zoologists. While admitting that he had witnessed stereotyped pacing and cage-gnawing behaviour in the bears, the curator of Animals at San Diego Zoo insisted that "it provides a form of regular exercise."

Even in the most prestigious of circuses, it is normal practice for wild animals to be confined for life to cramped and bare beast wagons. The ritual defense for this is that 'they know of nothing else' and that an animal experiencing fear or deprivation in their confinement would howl, scratch and gnaw at the bars. But would even a human prisoner continue to howl after realising that there is no use in doing so? Certainly, before learning the hopelessness of its situation, many a captured animal scratches and cries in a frenzy of desperation. Only with time and a realisation of futility, is this distress gradually translated into stereotyped behaviour, the defiant and noisy chain-rattling of elephants, for example, bears biting and sucking at the bars of their wagons, mad-eyed monkeys indulging in compulsive masturbation and self-mutilation. But, insist the circuses, the performing menagerie animal receives regular exercise, and therefore their welfare is even superior to that of zoo animals which may have far larger enclosures. Such "exercise" however, may only amount to a stressful appearance in the arena, either for training or during show time under the glare of the lights and the cacophony of the audience's applause, cheers and whistles. In the case of a wildcat, the animal will be prodded with a stick or metal bar out of its cage into the tunnel which connects the beast wagons to the arena, face its trainer brandishing a whip, perform several tricks, and then be prodded once again down the tunnel back to its cage. To pro-circus ethologists this is called "occupational therapy," which amounts to quite a stunning admission in itself since in my dictionary the definition is "the therapeutic use of crafts, hobbies, etc., esp. in the rehabilitation of emotionally disturbed patients." Says a former officer of the British Veterinary Association, James Allcock: "I am not in favour of the traditional 'wild' animals living in travelling circuses. The big cats - lions and tigers - cannot possibly have an acceptable life in the unfurnished cages (large wood and steel boxes would be a better name) that they have to live in. . . They may be in the ring for a couple of hours a day, but the remaining 22 are spent looking at solid walls, bars or passing people."

Predictably, drugs are used extensively to blunt the psychological terror of these freak show animals. Only recently has "occupational therapy" become a more expedient and respectable course of action, though all too often even this is no more than a sugar-coated pill for the public. "Elephants, apes and bears - they're the greatest problems for the circus," says Fred Kurt. "I would say that they should never be allowed to travel with them any more. Often in the menagerie you can't even see the apes - they're hiding in the back of the wagon or under the straw. It's the same for the bears in the Russian and East European circuses - they're hidden away in boxes - boxes that are so small that the bears can't even turn around. Most are kept permanently under drugs."

The RSPCA finds similar cause for complaint in the way elephants are held in captivity in the circus: "Elephants are shackled nearly all the time, and although the chains are often enclosed in rubber pipe or sacking, some elephants have been permanently scarred by lifelong leg-chains."

In most countries, the law makes no distinction between a performing and non-performing animal, the travelling menagerie being exempt from any legislation which might govern standards in zoos, such as providing accommodation specifically attuned to the unique needs of individual species. Indeed, for every single animal in the menagerie, even the most rudimentary conditions which characterise their life in the wild are missing climbing possibilities for arboreal apes, for instance, or bathing facilities for polar bears and hippos. The only 'justification' for this exemption is monetary, quite simply because even the most elite travelling circus cannot hope to provide the space required for animals under zoo legislation. Noting that a wagon measuring 6 x 2.4 x 1.8m is considered adequate for seven polar bears, and that it is deemed acceptable for 14 lions to be housed in a vehicle with a volume of 6 x 2.7 x 1.5m, the RSPCA concludes that circus cages "are designed only for transportation. They must, by definition and design, always be inadequate. . . Frequently old, dilapidated and rusting, these wagons offer no outlet for the animals' instincts to explore, to 'play' or do anything other than exist." Indeed, few animal living quarters can be as bare as a circus beast wagon, save for those in a laboratory or a factory farm. Even hiding possibilities - to allow the animal to retreat from the inquisitive eyes and teasing of the crowds - are generally non-existent, quite simply because the public won't pay to see a hiding animal.

A rare insight into just how the frustrated and neurotic menagerie animal regards the public on the other side of the bars is given by zoologist and anthropologist, Dr Desmond Morris, formerly director of London Zoo: "Apes and certain monkeys have sometimes been known to develop the habit of throwing their faeces at visitors. The colony of adult chimpanzees living on an island at Chester zoological gardens frequently tears up clods of earth and hurls them with remarkable accuracy at onlookers on the other side of the water-ditch. The dolphins at Marineland in the United States were observed to pick up pebbles from the floor of their large tank and flip them out of the water at certain visitors." He adds that "Apes, monkeys, cats, corvids and parrots may sometimes develop an enticement device. The visitor is attracted and then attacked. In most cases this involves an intense and extremely friendly invitation to groom. The mammal presses or rubs itself against the wire or bars, the bird cocks its head and ruffles its feathers. Then, as soon as the visitor has started to scratch, stroke or rub the soliciting animal, it swings round in a flash and scratches, bites or stabs at its victim."

Plagued by rising costs and falling attendance, many travelling shows are run on a shoestring, and thus the animals often suffer from inadequate care and veterinary attention. According to the Washington-based group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, circuses "may visit 150 towns in the spring, summer and fall months, and a clean water supply is not readily available in every location. As a result, drinking water is limited, and cleaning the animals and their cages may take low priority, causing real hardship for animals like elephants, who are accustomed to frequent bathing." Not even when the circus has come to the end of its touring season will the animals be allowed more spacious accommodation. During the slack winter months, most animals will still be kept in their beast wagons or travelling crates. Few circuses have the funds or the desire to invest in comfortable winter quarters since off-season housing is only used for a few months a year. Because of quarantine regulations, other animals will simply continue touring abroad, as far afield as Asia, South Africa and Australia. Jim Clubb: "When we send an act onto a European tour we usually keep it there for a minimum of 5 years because when we come back to England we have to go through quarantine - that would mean that we would have to stay on one premises for 6 months without working." Adds Chris Krenger: "When an animal act leaves Knie at the end of the season they'll go to another circus to tour Germany, Italy and Holland for example. They're always in these wagons, that's for sure, but they're all born in the circus in these wagons. They don't know anything else."

Asked whether it can be justified to have animals confined to their cages for life, Dr Thomas Althaus replied: "Well what else should the circuses do with their animals? Kill them? You can't let them out: to an animal that's the most frightening, terrible experience. He fights to get back into his environment where he feels secure. If they open their cages the animals are more than happy to get back in again." But is this not a psychological phenomenon similar to that suffered by human beings who have spent years in prison or other institutions? "Well these are not people. Animals are animals and people are people. A person can realise that there is an outside world and can have a wish to go from Berne to Zürich, for example. An animal cannot." So both morally and legally one must accept different standards between animals and people? "Absolutely. An animal is an animal, constructed in a completely different manner. For these leopards or tigers, the cage is a home where they feel at ease. They go through their tunnel to the circus ring and even there on their pedestal, they may fall asleep or doze off or begin to lick themselves. An animal that is not at ease wouldn't do that. If the animal was stressed it would begin to shiver, try to run away, urinate, defecate, vocalise, scratch." But such statements may simply reflect the contradictions that inevitably infest the pro-menagerie argument, especially that perennial warning to avoid anthropomorphism - while almost in the same breath the practice of placing plastic sunglasses on a dolphin or infant's clothes on a chimpanzee is defended as just enhancing 'show value'. Perhaps it was significant then that although regarding "animals as animals", when I outlined to him the psychologically depressed state of two chimpanzees inhabiting a beast wagon at the dilapidated Swiss circus Olympia - the animals burying their heads in the straw or gazing dementedly through the bars, hugging themselves and aimlessly rocking from side to side - Althaus stated, apparently too deep in thought to realise his error: "Yes, that may be a very bad sign - like an autistic child."

Stereotyped Behaviour

Both for menagerie and dressage animals, the pressures of captivity, coupled with the almost inevitable destruction of some species' complex social structures, can often lead to severe neurosis and stereotyped behaviour, leading some circuses, says Kurt, to keep many of their animals under "psycho-farmaca" or other 'headache pills.'" Such treatment becomes necessary when the stress of confinement provokes fighting between animals, aggression towards the trainer or even self-mutilation. Despite appearances to the contrary, many wild animals are only superficially 'tamed' by their captivity. Their instinctive behaviour patterns and social needs remain largely intact within their genetic make-up, and it is the continual frustration of these natural impulses which drives the captive wild animal relentlessly into neurosis. As the RSPCA points out, prolonged social isolation in primates can lead to autistic-like behaviour, stereotyped rocking and thumb-sucking, the animals often withdrawing into the corner of their cage, hugging themselves or relapsing into fits of severe self-directed aggression, such as banging their own heads continually against the bars, walls or floor. Young monkeys reared away from their mothers display typical deprivation symptoms, aggression, apathy, lack of exploratory behaviour, general listlessness and as adults, they are often unable to foster young. Females that do manage to give birth under such wretched conditions have been known to neglect their offspring, even attack them or over-groom them. Says Dr. Desmond Morris: "Parent animals sometimes become too parental if they have nothing to divert their attention. There is then the danger that they may spend too long cleaning or licking the offspring and damage them in some way. They may insist on carrying them in their mouths for long periods of time, or they may eat parts or all of them." Self-mutilation, he adds, may start in an entirely different fashion. "Usually the animal concerned is isolated and is so under-occupied that it over-cleans itself. A simple example is the 'running sore'. An animal experiences a very minor superficial injury - a scratch or a small cut. It starts to lick or rub it and soon it develops into a larger and larger area. In the wild, the normal amount of licking that the animal would have time for would help to cleanse the wound and it would heal normally. In captivity, on the other hand, the animal may go on worrying the place until it becomes really serious. A large percentage of all captive monkeys are without the extremities of their tails for this reason." Morris goes on to note that "Young apes taken from their mothers at the clinging stage may develop a clinging response to their bedding, grasping a bundle of straw or hay tightly to their bodies. It is significant that such individuals, even when sexually mature, may resort to this distorted infantile pattern when they experience insecurity." As the RSPCA points out, it is highly significant that "'deprivation symptoms' such as rocking, pulling out hair, chewing fingernails, obsessive scratching and playing with their genitals have been observed in parentless children living in institutions." Chimpanzees, says Morris, are particularly susceptible to such deprivation. He graphically describes their inventiveness in the ultimately futile effort to cope with the deadly monotony of their lives in captivity: "And how ingenious they are! Over there is a young chimpanzee with nothing to play with except his own body. He invents new kinds of locomotion - rolling, spinning, dropping on his head from the roof. He stuffs straw into his ears, smears his faeces over the cage wall and traces patterns in the mess, pulls faces, claps and waggles his hands. But with no companions and no complexity in his environment to manipulate and investigate, he will, despite his brave attempts at inventiveness, grow up to become a dulled, stupid clown instead of one of the most brainy and fascinating creatures on the face of the earth." There is, he concludes, "something biologically immoral about keeping animals in enclosures where their behaviour pattern, which has taken millions of years to evolve, can find no expression. . . until this knowledge is applied all we can hope for is to see animal lunatic asylums." Often, not even a larger enclosure can heal the psychological wounds caused by years of confinement in a circus beast wagon. In one instance, a circus polar bear sold to a zoo continued to pace-out precisely the same circuit that conformed to the measurements of its beast wagon.

Once in captivity, stereotyped behaviour in an elephant often manifests itself as a compulsive weaving movement. Fred Kurt: "This is always a sign of an animal which is not well-kept. The movement starts when the animal walks or stretches to the point where the chain ends and then back again. They feel the natural impulse to move - to eat perhaps, or because it is too cold or too hot or they want to go out, or they're frightened and they want to run away from something, or they're nervous before the show - but because they're restrained by the chains, this impulse is translated into the weaving pattern. It may also occur because very often, the elephants have such little room in their circus tent that not all of them can lie down at the same time. And so when an elephant wants to lie down but it can't, then this very neurotic weaving behaviour begins again." Imagine the psychological injury continually inflicted upon these creatures, he adds, by being almost permanently chained-up in a row: "An elephant realises that there are eight different individuals in the tent but it will only know two of them, the one to the left and the one to the right. Like this, their entire social behaviour is bound to become crippled, and this is what is always forgotten. Normally the people in the circus have little or no idea how these animals would live out in the wild, free, nor can they be bothered to know. They have only ever seen them in circuses and if for instance you try to persuade a circus to keep elephants without chains - as I have done many times with Knie - they simply don't understand it. For the circus owner or animal trainer, elephants have always been kept in chains." Indeed, in his book Elefanten und Artisten, published in 1987, Rolf Knie declares that "without chains the elephants would tear the tent apart, tear the canvas to pieces and eat it."

"It was thirty years ago that as a university student I first spent several months at Circus Knie because animal behaviour interested me very much," explains Kurt. "Through Knie I also spent time at other circuses, such as Bertram Mills in England. At this time I saw the animals through the eyes of the circus trainer: elephants had to be kept like this and nobody criticised it. And then when I began my behavioural study on elephants I started to observe this stereotyped behaviour, which was evident even in newly-caught baby elephants. Now even today, thirty years on, these problems still exist." But what are the precise causes? To begin with, says Kurt, much of this neurotic, compulsive behaviour is induced by the destruction of the species' complex social structure: "Often baby elephants are taken away too early from their mothers. Even Zürich zoo's head elephant keeper told me that he believes every elephant has already gone mad before it arrives. In the wild, you see, the young may suckle for up to two years. The presence of the mother is of tremendous importance - she protects the baby and teaches it a great deal, from stripping the bark of a tree to eating grass. The young one will be about 4 years old when the mother gives birth again - then it acts as an assistant to the mother to help raise the younger brother or sister, and learns how to give them food, how to play with them, how to protect them when they sleep. These animals are taken away to the circus in one of the most important phases of their life."

Even something as seemingly elementary as how the animals are fed in captivity can have a profound impact upon their psychology and well-being. "In the wild, the larger an elephant becomes," Kurt told me, "the more time it spends on feeding, including the preparation of food - some plants they eat only the bark, for instance, others, only the leaves. But in the circus, the food is delivered highly-prepared. Maybe once in a while they get some branches but even these are quickly removed because everything has to look so tidy. So instead of spending 16 hours a day feeding, they spend 2 hours - and because this leftover time is not replaced with anything else they can do little else than become mad. If they could only walk, or play. . . as highly social animals they could also spend more time in social inter-action, but in the circus they're in chains so they can't even meet each other, perhaps only their two neighbours in the row. Of course, none of these things kills the elephant - and that's why it just doesn't matter."

According to Kurt, another cruelty routinely imposed upon the circus elephant is to deprive it of its ritual bathing and mud baths. The very least circuses should do, he declares, is to take their elephants out into the nearest wood or forest, the nearest stream or lake. "If you don't do it for the elephants," he implores them, "then at least do it for yourselves because that creates a hell of a lot of goodwill amongst the public." Yet there are additional reasons that make bathing for elephants imperative, reasons that the circuses just don't understand, he adds. "The elephant skin has a velvet kind of quality which even bleeds if a horsefly stings it. With its funny hairs, the elephant feels what it doesn't see. The skin is also very important for thermo-regulation. It is highly sensitive, so it needs a lot of care, not only a bath. They use leaves, sand or earth to cool the body and retain the moisture of the skin. But now when you see these circus elephants they always have to stand there clean, naked, whereas you never see a clean, naked wild elephant, they're always covered with water, mud, leaves, sand, earth or something to protect the skin. I believe this may add to the unhappiness these elephants must feel in the circus."

The Prisoner's Chains

On a sweltering summer's day in Berne, Circus Knie's elephants, as is customary, were standing side by side in their tent, their feet locked into thick chains. The air under the sun-drenched canvas was humid and musty as the elephant-keeper moved slowly along the line, hosing and scrubbing down the animals. The last elephant in the row, however, was lying on its side, and despite gentle coaxing, shouts and then more violent prodding, could not be persuaded to lift itself up. As the keeper began to lose his patience, the other elephants in the tent became increasingly restless. It is perhaps one of the first rules of the circus that the animal trainer or keeper cannot afford to back down before a disobedient creature; he must at all times in the relationship maintain the clearly-defined status quo and his own dominant position as "the alpha" or master. As the keeper began to brandish his elephant-goad at the stubborn animal - a short stick with a metal hook on one end - tweaking the thick yet sensitive skin, each and every one of the other elephants in the line began stamping their feet and rattling their chains. So rhythmic and tumultuous was the sound that it seemed startlingly reminiscent of a spontaneous protest by the inmates of a human prison.

Dr Thomas Althaus was reluctant to comment on the elephants' chain-rattling, ducking behind clinical ethological methodology, rather than admit that even his favourite circus possesses prisoners of conscience, their wildness somehow regarded as a crime against civilisation: "That's very difficult for me to interpret because I have not seen it first-hand," he declared. In all his years as a circus fan, all that he had observed with "scientific objectivity" was the chain-rattling which greeted the keeper bringing food. "So this might be compared to begging behaviour, like a child that wants attention," he told me. "Of course this might also be the reason that the inmates of a prison make a noise - to get their food quickly or whatever they want in prison."

I then asked Fred Kurt what could have provoked such a reaction. "When elephants suddenly rattle their chains like that it could mean that they foresee that one of them is to be beaten," he replied. "Some of these elephant keepers are not as clever as the elephants - macho individuals with loud voices and big muscles and sooner or later they get trampled on or even killed. Of course Knie, because of its reputation, is not very proud to have information published about the accidents they've had with elephants. But Knie had an accident in Berlin in 1979 when a little elephant stood on top of two of those idiots and broke their bones. Even so, this is not exceptional, this happens every year in the circus because the animals are physically and mentally tortured." In taming the innate wildness of the animal and breaking its spirit, such abuse may be virtually inevitable. For an unruly elephant for example, there is the punishment of 'spanning' - where all four feet are fettered by chains, and then its front legs pulled forward and its hind legs backwards. An elephant that finally loses its long-tried patience and turns against its trainer is almost invariably shot. Says Kurt: "The elephant calfs are normally mentally broken before they reach Europe. I mean what must it be like for an elephant baby to put it in a box, in an aeroplane or for weeks on a ship? In the beginning when they are still little they're spoilt, but afterwards. . ." The same phenomenon may be equally true of elephants born in the circus, adds Kurt, citing the case of Knie's second captive born elephant, Madura, which was shot after killing its Moroccan keeper in Austria in June 1984. Speculating on the cause of the attack, Kurt says: "It could easily have been because she was spoilt when she was small. And then of course as she grew bigger she had to be handled a little more roughly - with hooks and so on - and then she became aggressive. When you are spoilt as a child and from one day to another you suddenly realise everybody who spoilt you has now started to knock you down and beat you, then it comes as a big shock. And then of course you react. And there are some keepers in the circus who like to show their authority so that every morning they beat the elephants - there are these traditions in the circus."

Chris Krenger however, denies that Knie's training and dressage is in any way cruel or degrading to the animals: "They like it, it's good for them, and they get much older than in the wild. Elephants in the wild, for example, hardly ever reach the age of 20 because they suffer from hunger and disease, they die because there is not enough water, they have accidents and there is no vet who can treat them. But in the circus, elephants easily get 60 years old." So for Krenger it seems, the elephant's own preference must be obvious: a life of 60 years in chains or only 20 years in the wild. How strange it is that as humans we must even impose upon the wild animal our own atavistic prejudices against nature, and to convince ourselves that even for the elephant, human civilisation must be infinitely more preferable. Similar sentiments to those voiced by Krenger are also echoed by Emil Smith, describing the benefits enjoyed by his captive bred wildcats: "No freedom, no suffer. A blind man born blind won't suffer half as much as a man who has a car accident and becomes blind all of a sudden. So they enjoy it here, you can see they're happy animals with an interest in life."

The Endless Journey

Confined to its beast wagon, the exotic circus animal must somehow learn to cope with the ordeal of being carted around from country to country by ship, plane, train and truck. In 1986, for example, it was disclosed that three Chipperfield elephants had been chained in a dark crate in the hold of a ship for three months, while on a problem-plagued 40,000 km journey around the world. Eighty-two year old patriarch of the circus family, Dickie Chipperfield, insisting that "we love our elephants," blamed the incident on a "paperwork mix-up"; RSPCA wildlife officer Stefan Ormrod, on the other hand, declared that circus animals forced to endure such conditions were "better off dead". The elephants, Camilla, Leila and Mina, were being shipped by Chipperfield to the Far East for a set of performances in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and it was here that they were refused entry by port authorities. According to the RSPCA, while Chipperfield's vainly tried to have their paperwork ironed-out, the elephants were stored on a barge in the steamy harbour of Kao-Hsuing, still manacled in their metal container measuring just 12 x 2.4 x 2.7m. Here, in the stifling humidity, with temperatures soaring to over 30oC, the three luckless elephants were destined to spend two months. The animals were then moved to Hong Kong where they were also refused entry, finally obliging Chipperfield's to return to the U.K. to sort out the tangle of red tape. Upon arrival at Southampton, an Inspector from the Port Health Authority found the container to be so badly damaged by the frenzied kicking of the elephants that it was not even roadworthy. Also returning, in a container with seven compartments, was a black bear, 4 polar bears, two tiger cubs and four lion cubs, one of which was found to be paralysed and was declared physically unfit to have made the 24-day voyage from Hong Kong.

But billed to appear at a circus at Hong Kong's Ocean Park - together with a boxing kangaroo, eighteen lions and performing pigs dressed as racehorses and a troupe of monkeys in jockey costumes - even then the ordeal of Chipperfield's three elephants had not yet come to an end. With fresh entry permits and a new container, they set off once again on their arduous journey back to Hong Kong, completing what was described by the press as a "25,000 mile Voyage of Hell".

Revealing just how the law countenances such abuse, only the most flimsy legal action could levelled against Chipperfield's for the three-month nightmare that their elephants had to endure - "overcrowding" is an offence under the Transportation of Animals Act 1973. Indeed, the most serious charges that could be brought against the circus related to the allegedly illegal import of animals into the UK and to the distress caused by the long journey to the paralysed lion cub. At the end of the five-day hearing in January 1989, Chipperfield's were fined just 1000 pounds by city magistrates in Southampton for transporting the sickly animal in an overcrowded and unfit container. The six-month old cub, the court heard, had died in quarantine three weeks after the traumatic journey, and had been discovered in the container to be suffering from a swollen foreleg, enlarged hocks, curvature of the hind legs and partial paralysis. Eleven charges of illegally importing polar bears, brown bears, two tigers and four lion cubs were not proven. Denying all 13 charges relating to the voyage, Dickie Chipperfield declared: "I would not have shipped the animals if I did not think that the container allowed space enough." But a court trying the shippers, P&O, disagreed. Magistrates in Southampton fined P&O and its captain P.J. Clark a total of 1000 pounds for failing to ensure that the animals would not be caused injury or unnecessary suffering.

Predictably, such insignificant penalties do little or nothing to improve standards of animal welfare, even with previous offenders. Due to another wrangle over import papers and unpaid bills, seventeen Chipperfield lions and tigers were left practically deserted in two rusty and dilapidated trailers at the end of the Circus' New Zealand tour in 1988. The tour was cut short after poor ticket sales forced some shows to be cancelled. Problems then arose as the Circus was preparing to leave for Indonesia. The necessary import permits for the eight tigers and nine lions had not been received, and further delays ensued when the Circus was accused of still owing money for previous transportation costs. Consequently, these animals were for some three months confined to their beast wagons - part of the time on a car park - unable to be exercised due to quarantine regulations. According to a Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries vet, the animals were crammed together in pitch darkness, lying in their own filth. One tigress, who had died after giving birth to twin cubs, had been partially eaten by the others.

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