Animal Welfare: Circuses
Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Written answers and statements, 4 November 2009
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will bring forward proposals to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Minister of State (Minister for Food, Farming and Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Poplar & Canning Town, Labour)
Wild animals used in travelling circuses are protected by The Animal Welfare Act 2006, which prevents unnecessary cruelty or suffering to any vertebrate animal. The Act makes owners and keepers responsible for ensuring that the welfare needs of their animals are met. This includes the need: for a suitable environment (place to live); for a suitable diet; to exhibit normal behaviour patterns; to be housed with, or apart from, other animals (if applicable); and to be protected from pain, injury, suffering and disease.
A Feasibility Study is currently underway looking at the possibility of regulating wild animal acts in travelling circuses. The Feasibility Study is nearing completion and we expect it to be finalised by the end of the year.