George Bernard Shaw

Contents

Quotes

"It concerns me that circus animals have to travel continuously around the country and spend so much time in cages. They spend very little or no time in a more natural environment. I would like to see this change."

Vanessa Amorosi: singer

“I find it extremely sad that animals are living out their lives in environments so out of keeping with their instincts.”

Andre Malan: journalist, West Australian

"But for the use of physical punishment by, and fear of their oppressors, animals would never be a part of a circus."

Richard Pryor, actor

“We will never have animals in our shows. They are animals not performers, they should be in the jungle.”

Pierre Parisien: Cirque du Soleil

"Don't go to them, do not go to movies in which there are animals, because if you do, you are subsidizing animal cruelty."

"You cannot accept that .... When you see animals in pictures, you are putting them at risk."

Bob Barker, veteran star of The Price is Right (USA).

"I vehemently support the banning of exotic animals in circuses. It not only demeans the aminals, but also the people who make them perform."

Councillor Max Kay, AM CitWA
City of Perth

"There are currently three tragic situations threatening elephants: loss of habitat, poaching for ivory, and circuses. We are helping the elephants closest to home, who spend most of their lives not in family groups, but shackled in chains. The elephants who are hauled across the country in trailers for up to 50 weeks a year and abusively trained with beatings from the bullhook and via electric shock to make them perform what can only be, for them, distressing and uncomfortable, even painful, tricks."

Rue McClanahan, actress (The Golden Girls)

“When children see animals in a circus, they learn that animals exist for our amusement. Quite apart from the cruelty involved in training and confining these animals, the whole idea that we should enjoy the humiliating spectacle of an elephant or lion made to perform circus tricks shows a lack of respect for the animals as individuals”

Peter Singer: Aust Author/Philosopher, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, USA author of Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, Animal Liberation and his latest One World The Ethics of Globalisation amongst others

“I think that they (circuses) should be boycotted”

Daniel Johns: Silverchair

"Performing animals in circuses? Is this in 2003 or some bygone age? Sadly, it is the former. It is beyond belief that in our so-called enlightened society animals are still incarcerated in cages and travelling wagons, chained, trundled around the country and forced to perform inane tricks in the name of entertainment.

Perhaps the bright lights blind the spectators to the truth of what they are watching. India has banned tigers, lions, leopards, bears and monkeys from the circus ring. A wonderful start. Shame on all those circus owners who don't follow their lead. Those of you who have seen the 'Cirque du Soleil' will know what the circus should really be about. Exciting, colourful, fun, dramatic and not an animal in sight."

Virginia McKenna: actress, Born Free Foundation

"There's always the wild animal in them”

Jan Lennon, Lennons Circus.

"I think that now that we are seeing multimedia types of productions with videos and pictures and human beings performing the acts that animals used to perform, such as in Cirque du Soleil and other traveling troops, there is no need to parade animals around anymore in cages for personal gratification."

Montel Williams, New York Television host, author, actor and activist

“I can see no justification for animals in circuses”

Senator Andrew Bartlett: Upper house Federal Parliament

"With wild cats, your mind must be right there. Their killing instinct is still there and if there is a chance for attack it happens”

Frank Gasser, Circus Royale.

"When I look at animals held captive by circuses, I think of slavery. Animals in circuses represent the domination and oppression we have fought against for so long. They wear the same chains and shackles."

Dick Gregory, 60's comedian, vegetarian, Civil Rights activist

"To keep an animal in a cage or enclosure for our pleasure is just totally wrong-outdated and cruel…a thing of the past and not a thing of the future.”

Josef Brown: leading Australian dancer

"These are wild animals - it's risky working with them”

Cheryl Lennon, Lennons Circus