Banned from the big top

2006-06-10

Nicole Baute, Toronto Star

As circuses starring humans gain popularity, classic shows starring animals are under fire

While circuses starring only two-legged animals – humans – gain popularity, old-fashioned shows featuring more exotic creatures are battling bans and restrictions.

Since its start in Quebec in the 1980s, the death-defying Cirque du Soleil has become an international sensation – sans animaux – while the more traditional circus has faced growing criticism from animal-welfare groups and politicians.

Tomorrow, Xentel DM Inc., which stages the Shrine Circus, will go to court to fight Newmarket council's banning of a show planned for later this month at the town-owned Ray Twinney Recreation Complex. Last month, two years after two circus elephants escaped the complex, council decided the facility is not safe or appropriate for performing animals.

Similar bans exist elsewhere in Canada. In 2000, Nova Scotia banned bears, marine mammals, fish and non-human primates from the circus. In British Columbia, roughly 20 municipalities have restricted the use of circus animals.

In Ontario, no specific provincial legislation regulates circus animals. Ian Garden, ringmaster of Circus Garden (formerly the Garden Bros. Circus), is in Newmarket today and Barrie this weekend with an animal-less act. He says leaving the animals out of this year's show was not a conscious decision. Five motorcycles on a "globe of death," a motorcycle on a high wire and Cirque-style dancers have been added.

"We just kind of updated it, giving it a more modern, video-game-ish sort of appeal," says Garden.

Len Wolstenholme, spokesperson for Xentel, says you cannot compare a circus with animals to one without. "It would be like comparing a heavy metal band to a folk band."

The Xentel show has seven Arabian horses, a troop of dogs and two elephants.

In Britain, where towns and cities started banning circus animals from public places in the 1980s, one circus has capitalized on what is now a novelty. The 8-year-old Great British Circus, which performs in private venues to avoid the bans, features lions, tigers, camels, llamas and horses.

In February, the company brought an elephant back into the ring – the first for a circus in Britain in 10 years.

"Because there has also been a gap in people being able to see them performing, that's an extra attraction, and an extra reason for people wanting to see them while they are here," says spokesperson Chris Barltrop.