Commentary on the Suffering of Wild Animals in Circuses and Traveling Shows (2005)

by Rob Laidlaw CBiol MIBiol

Are the animal confinement methods typically employed by the majority of animal-based circuses and traveling shows detrimental to the health and welfare of the animals? Are these kinds of confinement systems inherently cruel? Is restricted movement and boredom cruel? Are wild animals in circuses and traveling shows suffering?

Circus industry members and supporters vigorously deny that animals in circuses and traveling shows are mistreated or that they are suffering. In fact, they often claim that performing animals are very well treated; that all of their needs are satisfied; and that public concerns about their health and welfare are misguided and based entirely on an emotional reaction to misunderstood industry practices. The criteria they typically use in determining whether or not their animals are healthy and content often include the physical appearance of the animals, whether or not they overtly exhibit signs of illness or disease; the amount of veterinary care they require; food consumption; and how they interact with their human caretakers. While these are important considerations, albeit seemingly misunderstood or misrepresented by many circus proponents, there are other factors of equal or greater importance that must be considered as well and often seem to be overlooked or ignored.

The animal welfare community and others who oppose the use of wild animals in circuses and traveling shows claim that the suffering of performing animals is obvious. After all, they are kept in conditions of extreme confinement; they are unable to do almost anything that their counterparts in the wild would do; and many of them develop abnormal behaviours, including stereotypies (meaningless, repetitive movements divorced from their original stimulus). They feel that the answer to the question of whether or not animals suffer in circuses and traveling shows is yes, and obvious to anyone who looks at the conditions in which they are kept.

While there is a considerable, and ever increasing, body of evidence that circus and traveling show animals suffer, including dozens of expert observations and hundreds of hours of videotapes showing grossly inadequate housing conditions, abnormal behaviour patterns and animals being physically punished, there are very few empirical studies specifically focussed on assessing the welfare of wild animals in circuses. This may be due to the fact that there is little opportunity for independent parties to access the animals for study purposes.

The small number of studies that have been published do little to allay the fears of the animal welfare community. One would think that with all of the criticism leveled against circuses and traveling shows throughout the world that individual circuses and/or the industry collectively would study the question of animal suffering very rigorously and then publicize the results of their studies to prove their critics wrong. So far, that has not happened. Of course, if the studies netted results that bolstered the position of their critics, those findings would probably be suppressed, as it would not be in the best interests of the performing animal industry to release studies that undermined their own business interests. Ideally though, to avoid bias and manipulation, reputable, independent individuals and agencies, as well as animal welfare organizations, not connected to or employed by the circus industry should be the ones to conduct these kinds of inquiries.

Therefore, any independent party that does wish to examine the question of whether or not wild animals in circuses and traveling shows are suffering must look, not only at the numerous expert statements and videotapes regarding performing animals, but also at scientific studies conducted on the same and other species in analogous conditions.

The majority of circuses have historically confined most of their animals using two basic methods: 1) transportable cages and 2) chains or tethers. In recent years, small electrically fenced compounds for elephants and portable stalls for ungulates have also been used on a limited basis.

Overall though, there have been few changes in the accommodation provided for performing animals during the past century. This is primarily due to the nature of traveling shows, namely that they are in the business of traveling. Moving animals, many of them large and potentially dangerous, from one location to another on an almost continuous basis requires the use of relatively compact, simple, convenient caging or other equally convenient forms of restraint and confinement. The very nature of traveling shows precludes the provision of large, complex enclosures, such as those found in some zoos.

Many performing animals, specifically big cats and bears, are routinely confined in small, barren transport cages, known as "beast wagons." These wagons, which are usually about 1 ½ - 1 ¾ m wide by 2 ½ - 3 m long, are raised up on four wheels to facilitate moving them from trailer or rail car to performance venue. The wagons are often so small that the animals find it difficult, or impossible, to even turn around. The animals defecate, urinate, eat, drink and sleep in the same tiny area. The author has observed many of these kinds of cages in circuses and traveling shows in Canada.

In recent years, some circuses and traveling shows have started to use slightly larger trailer cages or portable chainlink enclosures that can be set up at each venue. While the space allocation per animal increases marginally in these situations, the cages still remain grossly undersized, barren and they do not address the specific biological and behavioral requirements of their occupants.

Circus and traveling show animals (e.g., elephant, zebra) that are not confined to beast wagons, trailers or portable enclosures may often be chained or tethered. Elephants are normally chained by one front leg and the diagonal rear leg in a row, often called a picket line, with other elephants. Chains are usually, though not always, long enough to permit the elephant to take a step or two forward or backward or to lie down.

Some circuses and traveling shows have started to construct electrically fenced, elephant enclosures at each performance venue. These enclosures are typically very small, lack complexity and do little to satisfy the specific biological and behavioral requirements of elephants. As well, some elephants are put back on chains once they have finished performing for the day.

Ungulates may be tethered by a face halter to a trailer or fence, or they may be kept in portable stalls that are constructed at each venue.

For the majority of circus and traveling show animals, apart from the limited time they are in the ring or performing, sometimes as little as a few minutes each day, or in some cases not at all, their time is spent in their transportable cages or on chains or tethers.

There are a variety of definitions and descriptive statements used when discussing animal welfare. They deal with both the biological functioning of the animal and the feelings an animal experiences.

Three definitions that are currently in use originate with the UK Brambell Committee report (1965) on the welfare of intensively farmed animals, Donald Broom, Professor of Animal Welfare, Cambridge University and veterinarian Professor John Webster.

According to the Brambell Committee, "Welfare is a wide term that embraces both the physiological and mental well-being of the animal. Any attempt to evaluate welfare, therefore, must take into account the scientific evidence available concerning the feelings of animals that can be derived from their structure and function and also from their behavior." The Brambell Committee findings were the basis for establishing the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare, used in the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions around the world.

Broom says, "The welfare of an individual is its state as regards its attempts to cope with its environment. The origin of the concept is how well the individual is faring or traveling through life. It can be good or poor but, in either case, there will often be feelings associated with the state which we should try to measure, as well as using more direct measures."

Webster puts it more simply, "The welfare of an animal is determined by its capacity to avoid suffering and to sustain fitness."

Other definitions of animal welfare focus more on the feelings that animals experience and suggest that the absence of negative emotional states (suffering) and the presence of positive emotional states (pleasure) are the primary determinants of welfare. These definitions recognize that the mental state of an animal is inextricably linked to its biological functioning and not separate from it.

While there are distinct, measurable physiological changes caused by chronic stress and/or changes in mental state that may indicate suffering (while these changes are measurable, care is needed with their interpretation), analysis-by-analogy can also be a useful tool for determining whether or not an animal may be suffering. If an animal reacts to something in the same way a human would react, it suggests that the animal is experiencing something analogous to what the human is experiencing. That could be frustration, fear, apathy and so on.

This is not to be confused with anthropomorphism, attributing human feelings and emotions to animals. If an animal reacts to a particular stimulus the same way a human would react, then it suggests that the animal is experiencing an effect that is analogous to the one the human is experiencing.

In general terms, there seems to be agreement in the scientific community that the welfare of an animal decreases as the effort it puts into coping with its environment increases. At a certain point, that effort, which comes at a biological and behavioral cost, begins to make the animal feel worse, thereby making its welfare poorer. This is particularly important in the captive situation, as wild animals generally do not possess the natural mechanisms necessary for coping with the chronic stresses of confinement.

Most captive animals live in artificial conditions that bear little resemblance to the environment their wild counterparts experience. Engagement in "natural" behavioral patterns, such as searching for food or patrolling a territory, is typically restricted or, in some cases, such as in many circuses and traveling shows, eliminated entirely. Animals then spend abnormally long periods of time sitting, lying down or sleeping and many develop a range of aberrant behaviors.

Lack of physical activity may also result in animals experiencing a loss of overall physical condition, including deteriorating musculature and cardiovascular fitness, skeletal problems and obesity.

Other effects of long-term captivity may include poor growth, diet and environment-related disease and disease associated with chronic stress.

According to Canadian animal welfare scientist Ian Duncan, suffering is "a wide range of unpleasant emotional states. These states would include pain, frustration, fear, various states of deprivation and, in some phylogenetically higher species, boredom."

Duncan also points out that many animals may experience other negative emotional states not readily recognizable to, or experienced by, humans. For instance, there may be negative states that we do not

understand or recognize, associated with hindering the biological impulse to migrate or hibernate or with the disruption of natural functions such as echolocation or perceiving polarized light.

While there are many negative emotional states associated with captivity, frustration and boredom are of particular interest to persons concerned with the welfare of performing animals, since they are thought to be the states typically associated with circus and traveling show confinement systems.

While it may often be relatively easy to determine whether or not an animal is physically suffering when it shows recognizable signs of illness, injury or disease, or, if you have direct access to the animal, by measuring certain physical functions, it is much more difficult to determine if an animal is suffering because of frustration, deprivation or boredom. Since we cannot know with absolute certainty what an animal is thinking or feeling, we must look for both physical and behavioral indicators of those states when trying to assess the psychological suffering of animals.

Frustration occurs when an animal is prevented from engaging in a behavioral pattern by being physically blocked, psychologically restrained or because its environment is lacking in something that does not allow expression of that behavioral pattern.

Wild animals have evolved specific characteristics that allow them to function comfortably within certain biological and behavioral parameters. While they experience a range of stressors during their lifetimes, they cope with those stressors through naturally developed, often flexible, mechanisms that prevent them from becoming chronic and life threatening. In higher animals, that includes the ability to exercise control and make choices about how they function in and relate to the environment around them.

For the most part, the artificial stresses of captivity are very different from the stresses an animal would experience in nature. Therefore most animals have not developed the natural biological and behavioral mechanisms to cope with them.

In captivity, the ability to exercise control and make choices is severely restricted, and for many performing animals that live lives of almost total institutionalized care, they are completely eliminated.

Many animals are also subject to a range of biological drives (e.g., migration, reproduction) that they have no control over. Frustration of those drives may be particularly problematic in captive environments.

If animals are unable to cope with frustration, they may engage in displacement behaviors that are unrelated to the behaviors they were originally trying to perform; they may become more aggressive; experience an increase in self-directed behaviors, such as over-grooming or self-mutilation; or they may become apathetic.

Frustration can also cause physiological changes, such as increased heart rate, respiration, suppression of adrenalcortical function, elevated levels of stress hormones and other changes. A few studies, focused on laboratory animals, demonstrate the effect that frustration can have on animals. For example, according to Sherwin, "Rats trained to press a bar for water or sucrose show elevated plasma corticosterone when the bar pressing is subsequently unrewarded."

Boredom in animals has been described as "the impaired ability to actively focus attention upon, and interact with, the environment." When animals are housed in barren environments , they tend to experience a decrease in interaction with their environment and an increase in abnormal behaviours. When they are unable to productively engage in "normal" behaviours, their attention gradually shifts to inappropriate areas, objects and activities. While boredom in animals may not necessarily be the same as boredom in humans, there are some similarities. As with humans in the some situations, the animals do not seem to know what to do. This stage of "boredom" can be a precursor to more problematic conditions.

Every wild animal is faced with problems and challenges on an almost daily basis. It is only when they become too severe or complex for the animal to cope with, or the animal is frustrated in its attempts to deal with them that suffering will occur.

It is generally accepted that suffering occurs when a particular stimulus becomes intense, unpleasant and prolonged and the animal has little or no opportunity to relieve or avoid it.

Assessing animal suffering can at times be a relatively simple process. Most of us would agree that a dog with a broken leg or a pig with a chronic, irritating skin condition is suffering. We can see the condition and what effect it has on the animal. Other kinds of suffering, however, are not quite so obvious and often require measuring the physiological functions of the animal and/or making inferences about the animal’s emotional state.

In response to stress, animals typically experience physiological changes. In humans, stress can cause rapid breathing, increased heart rate, the release of adrenaline and the release of other hormones by the adrenal cortex. Most mammals, birds and many other animals experience the same kind of stress responses. Chronic stress can alter metabolism, affect immune function causing increased susceptibility to ulcers, high blood pressure and other conditions, affect growth rate and so on.

Given access to circus or traveling show animals, and the right equipment, an observer could measure and track many of the physiological changes the animals experience. By examining the collected physiological data and comparing it with what is known about stress responses in other species, it can be determined with reasonable certainty, through inference, whether or not the animal is suffering.

Ideally, the physiological data that has been collected should be compared to that of the animal’s counterparts in other situations, such as in a "complex" zoo environment or the wild. If the response is substantially different, that may be a strong indication that the suffering is directly linked to the environment the animal is living in and not to some other factor. Unfortunately, very little scientific study has been conducted into the causal aspects of captive animal suffering.

The behavioral indicators of animal suffering may be obvious or subtle. They include increased timidity or aggression, hypersexuality, abnormal social interactions, poor parental care, decreased interaction with the surrounding environment accompanied by a corresponding increase in self-directed behaviours, displacement behaviors and stereotypies.

From previous sections of this paper, we know that animal suffering can be both physical and psychological and that when suffering occurs, it may often be subtle and difficult to recognize. We also know that scientific assessment of suffering may require observation of the animal by an experienced professional for many hours or days, or it may require them to directly measure physiological functions, such as heart rate, respiration and blood chemistry. How then, can humane societies and government agencies that are called upon to inspect animal-based circuses and travelling shows assess whether or not these businesses are causing animals to suffer?

Inspection agencies are faced with some difficult challenges. Because inspections are typically quite brief, they tend to be cursory, focussing only on the appearance of the animal, as well as rudimentary aspects of its accommodation and care (e.g., food, water, shelter). There is usually no opportunity to observe the "normal" behavior of an animal over many hours or days, or to directly measure physiological functions.

In addition, humane society and government agency staff are often not sufficiently trained in wildlife welfare and related issues, so they may not be fully equipped to evaluate captive conditions or whether or not an animal is suffering based on assessment-by-analogy.

They may have difficulty recognizing many of the behavioral indicators of suffering, such as increased timidity or aggression, hypersexuality, abnormal social interactions, poor parental care, an increase in self-directed behaviors, and displacement behaviors. However, they may be able to observe and document other types of abnormal behaviour, such as lethargy, unresponsiveness and stereotypies.

Despite the inherent challenges, humane society and government inspections still have great value. Inspectors can observe and document the conditions in which the animals live, how they react, what they are doing and whether or not they show overt signs of illness or injury. There have been many instances where these kinds of observations have been the foundation for public awareness and/or legal initiatives aimed at improving the lives of performing animals.

The question of whether or not performing animals suffer by severe restriction of movement and behavior seems elementary to critics. Although it is not a subject that has been comprehensively studied, by making inferences based on how other animals react to similar situations and environments, it seems clear that the housing provided to circus and traveling show animals negatively impacts on their health and wellbeing.

As well, a significant number of animal welfare experts and laypeople have observed and documented conditions in a range of circuses and traveling shows. Their documentation is alarming to say the least, and should not be dismissed. This author has had the opportunity to review conditions in many circuses and has observed animals exhibiting severe stereotypies or lying inert in a state of learned helplessness (a loss of response to stimuli, often referred to as "giving up") on the floors of their cages. There is no doubt in my mind that circus and traveling show animals suffer due to physically and psychologically impoverished living conditions.

Whether or not circuses or traveling shows will ever allow objective, independent, third party studies of their animals remains to be seen. It seems unlikely that they will, especially when the results might hinder their own business interests. Regardless, there is still ample evidence that circus and traveling show animals suffer. The conditions they endure are a throwback to days of old and continue today out of convenience and frugality. Therefore, the prudent and precautionary course of action at this time would be a termination of the use of wild animals in circuses and traveling shows.

Above and beyond the scientific aspects of the performing animal issue, one must also consider whether or not it is moral to treat animals the way that circuses and traveling shows do. Certainly the environments experienced by the animals are abnormal and artificial in the extreme. And there is no doubt that the animals cannot express the range of behaviours and movements that their counterparts in the wild, or even in better zoos, can, so it stands that their quality of life is much poorer. Whether or not animals should be exploited by making them perform trivial acts of entertainment to generate income for their owners is perhaps an even more important question than whether or not they are suffering in the scientific sense.

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