The circus came back to town on Wednesday, November 2, and with it, the animal anti-cruelty activists.
RECORD spoke to David McLaren, owner of the circus in question, and he had an interesting perspective regarding this issue.
“I know each and every one of these so-called animal anti-cruelty people by name and it’s the same group all the time,” says McLaren.
“I find it quite funny and very ironic that these ‘greenies’ are usually these housewives who drive these massive, fuel-guzzling SUVs with leather seats. I would say that’s very hypocritical, wouldn’t you,” he adds.
RECORD took a walk through the entire grounds where the circus was being set up and all the animals immediately came to McLaren. “Animals don’t come to their abusers like this,” he points out.
When asked about where he gets the animals from, he says: “We have registered breeders that we get our animals from. Not only is there no animal abuse here, but we actually assist in conservation. Our Bengal tigers are an endangered species and these four tigers that we have are from a breeding programme, trying to increase their numbers.”
McLaren adds that they have never been found guilty of any such charges, in spite of very regular checks by the SPCA. “We are a lot more stringently monitored than human children or even any other people’s pets,” he says, giving some perspective.
“If the SPCA spends all the money they do on court cases against us (which they lose), they could save countless animals, but instead, they continue this witch hunt against us,” he says.
Kingstone Siziba, manager of the Alberton SPCA, says they are completely opposed to the use of animals in the circus and confirm that they do very regular checks on the animals. When asked how it is different from pets being chained or having small areas, he says: “They do not get used to profit financially.”
In reply, McLaren says that the animals make up perhaps eight per cent of the show and don’t perform any movements or actions that wouldn’t take place in the wild. “Our animals are a lot less stressed than they would be in the wild and they train for very short periods. Our lions sleep for 20 hours of the day,” he adds.
RECORD attempted to contact some of the activists against animal cruelty but was unable to do so.
