Should Animals Be Kept in Circuses?

WALT - Evaluate Ideas in the Text

In the story “One dog and his Boy” by Eva Ibbotson the dogs ran away to the circus. We wondered whether animals should be kept in circuses to perform for people’s entertainment.

Heila - Animals can be harmed

Some people argue that animals should not be used in circuses because they can get harmed. If the animals get a trick wrong or even ruin the whole show, the animals can get whipped by the ringmaster, get no food to eat or anything to drink for a day. Animals that don’t perform well may be sold to the worst animal shelters.

Sara  - Money raised can help people

However some people argue that animals should be used in circuses because the money raised can help the circus and if the circus gets more money they can use it to improve the care, health and shelter for the animals and they could also hire proper trainers that don’t harm animals.

Joshua G - Disrupt natural food chains

If animals were taken for the circus for example tigers are often taken to perform in shows. This would negatively impact not just the tiger. Because tigers are already rare if they are taken to circuses there would be not enough predatory animals left in the jungle food chain to control the amount of other animals.

Kaelem - Animals can be taken care of

One argument why animals should be used in circuses is that In the wild animals would find it much harder to find themselves food or make a home/shelter. If they were at a circus they would be taken care of, the animals would have lots of premium food to help for their performances and they would also have a nice warm shelter/home they could rest in safely.

Conclusion

Overall we strongly believe that despite some arguments animals should not be used in circuses to entertain people. Animals kept in captivity for performances often suffer depression, lack natural behaviours and often leads to self harming. We encourage everyone to boycott going to circuses that use animals.