On this day in vegan history · January 20, 2020
England Finally Bans Wild Animals From Travelling Circuses
The law that ended a 63-year argument took effect on a Monday in January, and by then almost nothing was left to ban but nineteen reindeer, zebras and camels.
The facts
- In force
- 20 January 2020, England (Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019)
- Scotland first
- Wild Animals in Travelling Circuses (Scotland) Act 2018, in force 28 May 2018
- Last animals affected
- Two circuses, Peter Jolly's Circus and Circus Mondao, held 19 wild animals between them: six reindeer, four zebras, three camels, three raccoons, a zebu, a fox and a macaw
- Campaign length
- Freedom for Animals, founded in 1957 as the Captive Animals' Protection Society, had campaigned against circus animal acts for 63 years
On 20 January 2020, the Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 came into force in England, making it a criminal offence for a circus operator to use a wild animal, defined as one not commonly domesticated in Great Britain, in a travelling circus. Scotland had already gone further two years earlier, its own Wild Animals in Travelling Circuses (Scotland) Act taking effect on 28 May 2018. By the time England's ban landed, only two circuses were still touring with wild animals at all: Peter Jolly's Circus and Circus Mondao, together licensed for nineteen animals, among them six reindeer, four zebras and three camels. The law closed a campaign that had run since 1957, when a group founded by a retired schoolteacher first pressed Parliament to stop performing-animal acts, and that had watched an earlier attempt at a ban get repeatedly blocked by a single objecting MP in 2015. What the Act actually ended, in practice, was less a spectacle than its last legal loophole.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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Travelling circuses are no place for wild animals in the 21st century and I am pleased that this legislation will put an end to this practice for good.
Michael Gove, Environment Secretary, announcing the Bill, 1 May 2019
Source: Defra in the media (GOV.UK blog) -
Animal circuses are barbarous relics of a by-gone era and have no place in the 21st century.
Sam Threadgill, Director of Freedom for Animals, on the ban taking effect
Source: Journal of African Elephants
Why it still matters
It converted decades of public discomfort with caged wild animals into an actual criminal offence across the whole of Great Britain, closing off the last corner of the industry that had simply kept touring while everyone assumed it was already gone.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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