Introduction
Desmond Morris
As a professional zoologist I have become increasingly uneasy about the way our species has been treating the other animals with which we share this small planet. Despite our greater understanding of the behaviour and needs of animals, there are many areas in which there has been remarkably little reduction in their exploitation and persecution. One such area is that of the performing animal, and it is this topic that William Johnson has been investigating with painstaking attention to detail. His report on the modern menagerie should be read by anyone who cares about the welfare of animals.
Recently I felt compelled to outline a new Bill of Rights for animals and formulated ten commandments that we must obey if we are to show true respect for other species. Two of those commandments are relevant here. One states that 'No animal should be dominated or degraded to entertain us,' and another adds that No animal should be kept in captivity unless it can be provided with an adequate physical and social environment.'
It is hard to think of a performing animal act that does not break at least one of these two rules and it is high time that we re-examined this whole subject with a more critical eye.
In carrying out this re-examination there can be no better guide than William Johnson. After you have read his words you will find it difficult to rest easy until major improvements have been made in this area.
I have long argued that if wild animals are to be confined in captivity as a means of keeping the human population in close touch with nature, then their conditions must, of necessity, be as natural as possible. Unless they can perform their usual behaviour patterns, their captive state provides a distorting mirror that is of little use to anybody. It tells us nothing about nature because it is so artificial. And nothing could be more artificial than the performing animal carrying out silly tricks in the ring, on the stage, or in the dolphinarium.
A great deal has been written about the cruelty involved in the training of performing animals, but in my view cruelty is not the central issue. Of course, when it occurs, it is an abomination, but even if it can be shown that only kindness is involved in the preparation of a particular act, that still does not excuse it if the result is a ridiculously unnatural routine for the species concerned.
To see a magnificent wild creature wearing a comic hat and carrying out quasi-human actions is demeaning to the animal, even if it can be proved that it is enjoying the process. It degrades it because it makes it into something it is not. It reduces it to a caricature of humanity.
I have met many circus people and some of them have impressed me by the concern they have shown for their animals. Not all of them are cruel, by any means. But in the end all of them are involved in presenting a spectacle that is completely outdated in its central concept. The idea that it is funny to see wild animals coerced into acting like clumsy humans, or thrilling to see powerful beasts reduced to cringing cowards by a whipcracking trainer is primitive and medieval. It stems from the old idea that we are superior to other species and have the right to hold dominion over them. The first flowering of this concept was to be seen in the slaughters of the Roman circus and it has since been kept alive by religious teachings that have insisted on setting mankind above and apart from all the rest of creation.
We must rid ourselves of that earlier arrogance and recognise that we, too, are part of nature and must respect it in all its forms. If we fail to do this, our own future on this planet is seriously at risk. A start must be made by trying to change the way people think about animals, and persuading them to look at each species form its own point of view. One of the first steps will be to turn our backs on the travesty of nature that is the performing animal. Let the human circus survive and flourish with its thrills, spills and excitements, and its colourful traditions. But let the animal circus join bear-baiting, bull-baiting and cock-fighting in the dustbin of antique abuses that no longer entertain us.
DESMOND MORRIS
Oxford, 1990.
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