a) because they are wild animals which are very unfamiliar and often frightening to human beings, even to those who are very familiar with domestic animals (this argument is considered in Chapter 7);

b) because they are trained to do elaborate, and sometimes remarkable and astonishing things. The public, again even those experienced with everyday animal training often cannot believe that this is possible without using cruel methods. It is almost a situation where the observer feels they could not do it, so how could anyone else?

1) Circus training inevitably involves cruelty. This can involve physical restraint, goads and whips, and even electric shock and burning. B. F. Skinner (backed by the money, equipment and approval of the scientific establishment) used shock and pain to condition animals. This scientific approach has been enormously influential among behavioural scientists and the lay public; as a result, it is widely believed that the development of Conditioned Responses by Negative Reinforcement is one of the most important ways in which animals learn. Is this really the case in animal training?

2) Training consists of dominating the animal and serves only to enhance the anthropocentric belief in humans superiority. This results again in humans having less respect for the performing animal, and more for the presenter or trainer.

3) There is a loss of dignity in performing animals.

4) Training is essentially unnatural. Animals should only learn what is natural behaviour.

5) Wild animals should have special status. It may be appropriate to train domestic animals, but not wild ones (Chapter 7).

6) Nothing can be learnt about animals from circuses. They cannot contribute to conservation, research or human or animal education therefore any entertainment value is essentially worthless (Chapter 7 again).

a) physical or chemical restraint

b) word command

c) anxiety or distress exhibited by animals during training

d) the use of negative reinforcement to make the animal act - or the use of punishment after the act or lack of it

e) the use of the whip and human dominance

f) the use of positive reinforcement (reward) and evidence for pleasure in training.

As the training advanced, so more and more words were understood by the animals, although some species were better at this than others. It was taken for granted that the elephants, for their day-to-day management, understood round about 50 word commands; their name, stand still, lie down, lift different legs etc. They also understood concepts such as left and right. The animals were also scolded by word of mouth when they did the wrong thing, and if this did not have the required response, it was backed up with a repositioning of the whip, or the animal might even be touched with the whip. They were also praised frequently when they did the right thing, and sometimes rewarded with tit-bits. It was particularly interesting how frequently verbal praise was used by the trainers, and how effective it was.

Once the animal has learnt what Yes and No signify, it is a great deal easier for him to understand what is required thereafter. If a proper training schedule is continued, it is axiomatic that the animal accumulates an understanding of many more word commands. This is rarely done with domestic animals - only a few necessary word commands are taught, after that particularly with the larger animals, physical restraint, pushing or pulling, leading, tying and holding are used instead. The animals are not expected to understand the words and thus they do not learn them.

c) Anxiety or distress exhibited by animals during training

There was no evidence of prolonged or acute distress, or high levels of fear or anxiety during the training of any of the circus animals that I witnessed in the 200 animal hours I watched training. There were occasions when the trainers became short-tempered, but even then their use of the whip and administration of punishment was restrained. It was probable that the trainers were being restrained because of my presence, but allowing for that it is not possible to describe any of the training that I witnessed as very distressing for the animal, as judged by the animals behaviour.

Some of the young animals were frightened initially of the new experience of coming into the ring; for example, the young cats, and a young giraffe. The former, because they were anxious, were left in the ring daily for hours at a time so that they became used to the ring before any serious training was begun. Behavioural indices of when this had been achieved were used by the trainers. One of these was if the cats were playing together; another if they were relaxed enough to sleep.

Two llamas spat during training sessions, and two camels salivated profusely and leapt around growling - possibly signs of anxiety. Some animals certainly showed behavioural evidence of frustration and approach avoidance conflict from time to time (head shaking and tossing, tail swishing, yawning, lip licking, and staring away) and some refused to perform certain acts, such as the goats climbing up on to a plank over some cattle (figure 59), or one camel refusing to kneel down.

d) The use of negative reinforcement

It is widely believed that animals can only be trained to do the sorts of things they do in circuses by the wide use of negative reinforcement, that is being forced to do the action by having some unpleasant thing done to them if they dont do it. The perennial example given of this approach is: how could bears learn to stand up and dance except by placing them on a heated plate so that their feet burn and they lift them? This suggestion may be appropriate for the Skinnerian scientist in the laboratory, but for the circus trainer, apart from any other considerations, it is rather impractical! This is particularly so if there are easier, simpler and much less risky ways of teaching such a behaviour, which there are of course. The burning feet approach has other disadvantages which the circus trainer who must live and work with the animals thereafter is unlikely to ignore; for example, a hurting bear will be a frightened and/or aggressive bear who may attack in defensive threat. Hurting the bear may also damage relationships between trainer and bear irreparably. This is an important factor as the trainer will find it impossible, or at the least very expensive, to obtain another bear. The trainer looks forward to working with this animal for many years. It is also possible that the trainer does this job because of a strong interest in animals, and in particular the bear. The trainer may also be fond of his bear. This sort of behaviour which is likely to scar the relationship will often make the trainers job more difficult, because the animal becomes frightened and aggressive. Any knowledge of learning and learning theory points out how inappropriate and self-defeating the approach of training by using severe negative reinforcement may be.

Fig. 57. A young lioness learning to stand up on her hind legs by positive reinforcement: reward of a piece of meat on a stick. She learns to go to the stick, and receives her reward.

Circus animals have to be handled and moved around daily, and although negative reinforcement can be used successfully to train isolated animals in Skinner boxes, or could be used possibly to train small animals which can be easily restrained, it is very inadvisable to use such techniques for large, possibly dangerous animals. The reason is that it is when animals are scared and hurt that they attack in defensive threat, or flee. Thus the use of fear and pain to train large carnivores is selected against. Trainers who use these techniques get eaten! Frightened elephants are also something to be avoided, particularly if they are in collapsible tents!

Frightened animals are dangerous, whether they are bears, bulls, dogs, horses, sheep, cats, elephants, llamas, camels, tigers, leopards, lions or jaguars. Thus one of the first lessons a trainer of large animals learns, if he or she is going to remain alive and retain all their appendages, is not to frighten the animals. The early training of the big cats that I witnessed with three different trainers concentrated initially in simply getting the animals used to being in the ring alone. Over a period of weeks the animals gradually become accustomed to the trainer (in one case this was a six-months pregnant woman) and perhaps a helper being in the ring cage with them while great care is taken not to frighten the animals. If this happens then the training must go back and repeat the previous learning steps. All the training of the big cats is based primarily on reducing levels of fear and on positive reinforcement: rewards of pieces of meat on sticks (Figures 57; 58). The humans word of mouth command, body position and the position of the two sticks or a whip are the cues for controlling the cats movements. Similarly, elephants will work for titbits. One of an elephant trainers greatest worries is sudden loud noises, or visual changes outside their control that might frighten the elephants; for example, dogs chasing them, or helicopters flying a few metres away. The answer to this problem, the trainers have discovered, is not to keep the animals away from all such stimuli, but rather to expose them to them so that they become used to them. Inevitably, even with the best trained, most experienced animals there are anxious moments like when the Royal helicopter landed a few feet away from one circuss elephants, and the "Royal emerged to smile sweetly at the elephants while the trainer sweated, but the elephants stood stock still!

e) Dominance

It is widely believed that it is not possible to train animals at all without dominating them and showing who is boss. This is something I as a trainer have thought long and hard about. It is easy to accept the hypothesis of dominance hierarchies and apply it as an explanatory concept to all animal societies, but we are gradually realising that in many cases this is an oversimplification, and can lead up the garden path and even into the garden pond! In the first place, no one seems to mean the same thing by dominance. They vary from situation to situation, and sometimes are artefacts of behavioural disturbance [e.g. 1; 29; 96]. In fact, it is a misguided and overused term that is only useful very occasionally.

Fig.58. A young elephant following the trainers hand with a tit-bit in it, off the pedestal. Having achieved the right position, tne elephant is rewarded with the tit bit.

In practice, we often take dominance to mean showing who is boss. In training animals, is this necessary or indeed useful? In my experience this attitude, far from being helpful, is often positively harmful in educating either humans or animals. Suppose we rephrase it to be inculcating a basic moral sense, and showing mutual respect to the child/animal? In other words, teaching the adult, child or animal what type of behaviour is approved of and desirable by the teacher, parent, trainer or society at large, and what type of behaviour is not? This is what good teachers of children do.

Such a change in terminology immediately makes a difference in the attitude of the educator. Instead of the teacher requiring absolute obedience, and submission [cf. Federation dEquestre International and British Horse Society assessment of Dressage tests] from the student, he or she aims at cooperation and communication. The result is that correct behaviour is praised lavishly, and incorrect behaviour is disapproved of. The educators job is to present the problem, or the action, so that the student wants to do it. The problem to the educator is not one of disciplining and dominating, but one of motivating. Such an approach reduces or eliminates the need for punishment, which is difficult to apply correctly, and frequently causes rather than reduces problems. It encourages self-criticism on the part of the trainer/educator, and avoids confrontation of wills, and the concomitant high negative/emotional tension (i.e. temper losing, anger, fear and aggression). It opens up the possibility of using many of the ideas and techniques of educational psychology in animal training.

If one looks closely at good animal training, in the circus or anywhere else, from fleas to human beings to elephants, dominance and submission is a long way from what is actually going on. Interestingly enough it is not what the audience wants either apparently. The most popular acts are often those where the animal is apparently in control, such as the bucking donkey, or the trick dog who gets the better of her human partner.

Thus I argue that dominance is not a sine qua non of circus training. Although some basic moral education and motivation to learn for both animals and humans is.

As whips feature much in circuses, it is often considered that they are used not only indiscriminately in the training of the animals (it is rare to find people complaining that they are used severely in performance), but that they also serve to demonstrate the dominance of humans over the animals, and thus underline the anthropocentric idea of animals being demonstrably inferior to human beings.

Whether or not these are the reasons for the association of whips with circuses, it is certainly true that whips have a traditional place in circuses. It is also true to say that many circuses in Britain today are bound by tradition. Some are more concerned with history and keeping tradition going than developing a possible art form and educational medium for teaching people about animals. Circus people make whips, talk about whips and pride themselves on their whip craft. However this does not mean that they whip each other or their animals more than other people!

The whip has become one of their props, like the macho image of the lion tamer and his self-displaying garments. It is perhaps unfortunate and detracts from the potentially important attributes that the circus has.

The first questions then are: How is the whip used in the circus? Also, is it necessary for all presenters to carry whips, crack whips and generally play around with whips for the animals to perform?

In answer to the second question first, I asked a trainer and presenter of, among other things, a liberty horse act if he needed the whip? He said not and to prove it he presented the horses at the next performance with no whip and his hands in his pockets. The act was as good as ever, and he received excellent applause from the audience, although nothing had been announced to draw their attention to this. This demonstrates that it is not necessary always to present an act with a whip, either to ensure the animals perform properly, or to obtain the approval of the audience.

Animals in training, or new acts, may need the presenter to have a whip as the animals will be less skilled at picking up the cues. In the early training of any large animal, one of the first things that the animal learns is to go away from the whip. Thus it is the position of the whip relative to the animal that gives the cue. The whip is not there to whip the animals with, it is there rather to emphasise the message, like using flags to emphasise the arms when sending semaphore messages.

Circuses should move away from their traditional association with the whip, and progress as a rule (rather than as an exception) towards teaching animals to respond to the human arm position, or perhaps even the lift of an eyebrow, or a whistle. This would be more impressive, interesting and informative to the public and it would emphasise cooperation between performers and presenters rather than domination over the animals by the presenter.

Nevertheless, the whip is not usually used willfully or excessively in the circus. In fact, there is much more thoughtless and unnecessary whip usage at markets, on farms and in domestic animal training establishments, particularly among amateur trainers. If the whip is one of the reasons for disapproving and trying to ban circuses, current practices in horse training should also be looked at carefully.

The whip, it has been argued, is a symbol of human domination over animals, and this comes to its zenith in the circus. Even if this was once the case, it is again not a sine qua non. It does not mean that circuses necessarily have to demonstrate the domination of humans over animals.

The assumption that the most attractive thing about riding a horse, working a dog, or presenting a lion act is the feeling of domination over the animal is often stated. It is an interesting idea and one that must be considered carefully. It is possible that this is the reason why some people train animals, but I would suggest that many more like to work with animals for their own sake.

Another approach is to consider cooperation as being important. It would seem that the first reason why many people train and work with animals is to achieve this sense of cooperation where the different skills of the disparate species are combined to a mutually beneficial end: the closest we can get, perhaps, to inter-species communication. There is no doubt that some (maybe many) circus people work with animals, train them and present them in acts because it is a rather unusual thing. It will enhance their social status; they will be admired as artists, perhaps become famous and so on. The circus is, after all, like the theatre in many ways. That dominating the animals is the main motivation - and this is what the public come to see - may not necessarily be the case.

This is best illustrated by the remarkable success of extremely simple acts where the humans come off worse. One case was quoted to me of where a bucking donkey and his presenter were hired to a large American circus. Their act was to follow the Viennese Riding School. This school is considered the epitome of cultured riding; it is very rigid in approach; there is a right and wrong way for every movement being performed and each horse must be obedient (i.e. dominated) so that it performs the acts exactly as required. The horse has only very narrow confines within such a discipline in which to exercise any of its own initiative or possible creativity and invention. However, what brought the house down was a single donkey doing a humorous bucking act with its trainer. There were some set moves in the act, but no two performances were ever alike - different acts were performed in different orders and with different amounts of enthusiasm; it depended on the audiences response and the.mood of the donkey and his trainer as to how things worked out. Here there is an act which demonstrates the lack of dominance of the human and not only allows but encourages the donkey to use his own sense of timing, initiative and perhaps imagination. The reason for the acts popularity may well have been the contrast with the previous act, highly specialised Riding School act - and the blatant lack of domination of animal by human. Even learnt disobedience gives the animal considerable scope for initiative!

There are more examples of acts which set out to show that humans do not necessarily dominate the animals. The act itself, although it may have been well planned in a certain way before training started, is nearly always modified and changed as a result of the animals responses. In fact, the animals in some circuses are often encouraged at certain times in the performance to develop their own way of doing various movements or of demonstrating their individuality.

i) A llama act
There were superb props and costumes for this act. Four llamas came into the ring one after the other, to a commentary explaining that they were related to the camels, came from South America and that there were other close relatives such as the guanaco and alpaca. The music then began and the various members of the llama family who were clearly supposed to trot around the props set about investigating the audience on the ring fence, rolled in the sawdust and generally not doing what was required. Eventually in each performance the presenter, a young woman, managed to get them going round the ring and doing some of the routine. Then one llama, when expected to jump over poles, persistently went underneath, even though it had to do a limbo act. On questioning the trainer about this act, it turned out that these behaviours were not trained in the llamas; it had started as a straight liberty act, but the llamas themselves had invented these extra-curricular activities - one sometimes even jumping out of the ring and wandering up and down the aisles between the audience.

The effect was delightful, both amusing and instructive; whatever else was going on it was evident that the presenter was not dominating the animals and this, in particular, seemed to be what was appreciated by the audience.

ii) The training of a farm animal act
One of the routines in this act was that two goats were to climb up and walk over the backs of several cows on a wooden plank, and then walk down the other side. The goats had no difficulty climbing up the plank, but when crossing the cows backs, the cows moved and the plank wobbled. Several times the goats jumped off. Subsequently, they were suspicious and slightly scared of climbing up the planks, and resisted climbing them. Once the problem had been appreciated, a solid bridge over the cows was used so that the plank did not move. The goats were then induced with rewards to climb and cross the plank.

Fig. 59. A farrn animal act which was changed by the goats refusing to cross the plank when it was on the cattles back.

In another part of the act, a pig was meant to go on the see-saw with a bunch of geese on the other side. The pig would always jump enthusiastically on to the see-saw before the geese had fully prepared themselves on the other side. This frightened the geese and they ran off noisily. The act was changed so that the two pigs see-sawed together on one see-saw and the geese on another.

These examples show that, firstly, the presenter is not necessarily dominant; and also that the trainer must be sensitive to the animals responses to the situation.

The majority of animal acts are to some extent unpredictable - the animals may react differently on different days, in different places and with different audiences - they have moods. The art of the presenter is often to make what has happened look as if it was meant to happen. This does not, of course, only apply to animal acts but to all the acts in the circus.

The most educational and creative circus act might be described as one in which the animals have first of all - like a human artist or ballet dancer - been schooled thoroughly in the relevant techniques; such as various behaviours and movements. This basic training is then used in different ways by different individuals for the development of the act: the animals being encouraged to use their own initiative and possibly creativity and imagination to participate willingly and develop, to some extent, their own act. This can be encouraged by a sensitive trainer or presenter, good relationships between human and animals and cooperation.

We do not talk about good education of humans as demanding only obedience and domination but rather one in which the human is given the basic tools (which may require considerable application and motivation, hard work and obedience, too). Once these have been acquired, the human is encouraged to use them to develop his or her art and particular skills. Some end up great artists and dancers; some are mediocre. What makes a great performer, though, is not blind obedience and the domination of one individual by another, but imagination, sensitivity to each partaking individual and willing cooperation. How much greater our respect for all participants then becomes.

If we have yet to see this with animal acts in circuses, it is not that it cannot happen, it is just that it has not yet been thought about and efforts made to try it out.

f) The use of positive reinforcement

If this thesis has some basis we might expect to see some evidence of pleasure in the animals when they get things right; for example, when they are praised, they may even enjoy the process of learning as some humans do, finding the mind- stretching nature of appropriate and well-taught ring work exciting and rewarding in itself. Did we see any evidence of this?

All training sessions used positive reinforcement in the form of food rewards and praise with the voice. The food rewards varied from lumps of sugar, mints, lumps of meat, or a specially made biscuit called vitamins. The first important tenet in training is to find something that an animal will work for. This may simply be the trainers approval (word praises and scoldings were used persistently to encourage and discourage an animal at all stages of training), or initially some sought after small tit-bit. In some cases, I think we could consider the animals as enjoying their ring work, but we need to have much greater understanding of possible pleasure in animals. Usually, they worked enthusiastically for the rewards.

Another way of training animals (or humans) to perform certain tasks is by moulding. This is where the animal, or its appendage, is placed in the required position, and then the animal praised and positive reinforcement used. This is best done without force or any unpleasant stimulation. It was used successfully by the Gardiners in their work with teaching Amslan to the chimp Washoe [94].

3) Loss of dignity in performing animals

Another accusation is that animals performing in circuses is unnatural and undignified - the animals are made to look like stupid human beings and lose dignity thereby. The loss of dignity is probably in the eye of the beholder, if an animal finds a particular activity degrading, presumably it will either refuse to do it, or if coerced will show evidence of distress (Chapters 3 and 4). Since this will interfere with the training and performance, the usual thing to do is change the act for that individual. Certainly acts which humans find degrading may tend to decrease the humans respect for the animals themselves. On the other hand, representing animals as slightly handicapped humans elicits on occasion the ah reaction (Oh, how cute.) and thus care-giving behaviour from the human audience. Different humans will consider that this is either good or bad in terms of the benefit to the individual.

Let us consider the human judgement in more detail as, even if there is no evidence for loss of dignity by the animal, it does reflect what humans feel. The acts most humans find to be degrading and humiliating for animals are ones where, as a general rule:

a) the animal is made, they feel, to look like a human in one way or another - and in particular an inadequate or stupid human; e.g. the RSPCAs literature against circuses. In this case, the point is doubly made as the lion depicted is wearing a clowns or dunces cap and a thick nose.

b) the act is highly unnatural to the species.

From the educational point of view, this type of approach does not put across an acceptable or desirable image of animals. It tends to reinforce people in their belief in the homocentric attitudes of superiority. Far better would be to put across the idea of the animal as an intelligent, able and beautiful sentient individual; perhaps more intelligent, able and beautiful than we had previously supposed.

Some will argue that this is what television films do, and that it can only be done by displaying the natural behaviour of the animals. This is, I suggest, disputable.

First, let us examine if this is what television wildlife films do. The vast majority of television footage shown is not, as a casual viewer might suppose, the animal caught in the act as the camera operator happened to walk by. It is highly structured, often involving elaborate set-ups with sometimes live animals used as decoys or killed in order to make the footage. There are serious ethical arguments involving the use of animals in the television and film industry [113]. This is being changed by legislation so that at least animals do not suffer while they are filming. However, there is another serious disadvantage to assuming that wildlife films offer a sufficient education concerning animals. It is incorrect to assume that the television films are displaying the animals as they are. What is caught on film are the dramatic highlights of animal life, just as in human theatre. The result is that the observer may gather a completely incorrect idea of how animals live. The vast majority of the time the animals go about their lives with little melodrama, little obvious sign of the tooth and claw of wild nature that the television camera is so keen on capturing. This is not to say that nothing is going on in their lives, but rather that what is going on in their societies is less obvious and, in fact, may be completely unseen or not understood by those who are not skilled observers. For example, in the four years of living in the bush.of Africa studying antelope, I never once witnessed a chase and kill by a predator; although I did accumulate a great deal of information on the relationships between individuals, their ecology and many aspects of their behaviour. I have yet to see any television footage of gnu, gazelles or zebra in the Serengeti, for example, which does not include a hunt and kill by the large predators. Often, the footage is obtained by elaborate set-ups, both the predators and the prey being driven, manipulated and sometimes killed for the cameras.

Whether or not this is justified ethically is not my concern at this point. I am simply making the point that film footage does not usually display the normal natural behaviour of the animal. It shows only the melodramatic moments of it; also, it manipulates it by setting up situations. This is what human theatre and films do too. We should recognise that wildlife films are also theatre; that does not make them useless or invalid, however.

The film footage can never allow the direct experience of the animal and any interchange between the human and the animal. Indeed, it could be argued, that the display of animals in wildlife films often emphasises the differences of animals from humans. It might encourage some respect, impart some knowledge, but only in a sense as we would have for Martians as something quite alien and unrelated.

Fig. 60. Elephants dont stand on pedestals with horses running underneath them in the wild. Such an act is certainly unnatural in the sense that it does not occur in the wild, but is it undignified for the animal, or is this some humans perception of this act?

Another possibility is that presenting the animals as stupid human beings shows them in a way that exercises our compassion and responsibility to them - as we must respond to children or handicapped human beings. It is a question of whether we believe that compassion for the underdog, or respect for a highly intelligent and able other being, is most desirable in humans, and of most benefit to animals in the long run. The members of animal welfare organisations are often highly motivated towards the former; the latter would appear much more acceptable but often requires a rather new world view.

Circuses in Britain, in any case, have over the last few years become extremely sensitive to this criticism. I did not see a single act where animals were dressed up like humans.

4) Training is unnatural, therefore wrong

We did, however, see acts where the animals were taught to do behaviours that are not in their natural behavioural repertoire, although at least one trainer denied that this was the case, and that he had seen elephants in the wild standing up on their hind legs, reaching for things, or balancing on their front legs while drinking, and so on. This is no more absurd than the horse establishment, led by the classical Spanish Riding School, maintaining that all movements taught to horses in Dressage are natural movements and not tricks which is a demeaning term used fpr what circuses teach their animals.

There are two points that need examining here:

• What are we to consider as natural behaviour? Is this something that the animal does only in the wild, or when not in association with human beings? In which case we must include all dogs walking on leads, horses being ridden or pulling things, cows being milked, and so on since none of these behaviours are in the animals natural repertoire. If it is maintained that training domestic animals is alright but not wild ones, then good reason for making this distinction must be put forward. These are discussed in Chapter 7.
          Or are we to consider natural only the behaviour which is easy to do and requires little training. Complex tasks, such as balancing on things, twisting and turning in involved patterns, or - taking the analogy to humans - reading and writing, are tasks which require long and carefully structured training. In that sense, they are not natural.
• The second point is that even if we can agree on what we mean by natural, are any other behaviours that are not apparently in this category necessarily wrong for the animal or human to perform and if so why? An example: elephants do not normally stand and balance on revolving spheres, yet some can be taught to do this and perform this in the circus. This takes a long time, a great deal of patience and a lot of skill on behalf of the trainer and the elephant and it is not every elephant that will learn to do this. It is not possible to use negative reinforcement to teach an elephant to do this type of thing since however much it might want to do it as a result of coercion and fear, it will not be able to do it unless it has practice - it will just fall off. When an animal trainer, or anyone who has even a little understanding of animal education, sees such acts, what they admire is the mutual skills of animal and trainer in achieving it. Such a viewer may become increasingly impressed with the incredible abilities of such a large and apparently cumbersome animal in being able to control her weight and balance to such a sophisticated level, as well as admire the elephant/human mutual trust and understanding that has risen in order for the elephant to do this.

So not only is it debatable what we are going to define as natural but it is also debatable that only natural behaviour should be performed by animals in circuses, if what we are after is increasing humans respect, understanding and awareness of other animals as other intelligent, sentient, admirable beings.

There is the question of possible injury to the animal while performing some acts, and certainly it would be sensible to ensure that if an animal does fall, or something goes wrong with the act, it is unlikely to be seriously hurt. This is considered for human beings (e.g. by the provision of safety nets for trapeze artists) and should also be considered seriously for the animals.

Thus the dignity of the animal, and the wrongness of performing unnatural acts by both domestic and wild animals in circuses and zoos are difficult concepts to define. The performance of such acts from the animals point of view may not be such a bad thing.

It is true, however, that many humans find such acts displeasing. Is this not a matter of taste? I find plastic garden gnomes odious but I see no rational reason to ban others from having them, unless the having of them causes further problems (such as using up scarce resources of materials). However, at the same time, the having of them may be an indicator of other attitudes which I might think was undesirable or even ~ful. If this were the case one would perhaps, in a reasonable democracy, not ban garden gnomes, but rather by example and persuasion try and change peoples attitudes so they themselves change the plastic gnome into a beautiful garden scuplture. Changing circus acts in this direction would be possible.

The next question is: Are there any positive sides to the training and performing of circus animals? The RSPCA and others devoted to the total banning of circuses argue that in no way can they contribute to conservation, education or research, which are the usual arguments used by zoos to justify their existence. Is this true? Also, can the animals and humans benefit in any way from being trained, training or performing?

I think there are arguments to be made here, some of which are new:

• Training or educating the animal can act as a form of occupational therapy for the animal in captivity. There are strong arguments that some individual animals may benefit from captivity. The strongest is that they are alive instead of dead - 40% of carnivores and 5% of ungulates in the circuses were unwanted zoo animals that would otherwise have been killed.
           If some animals are going to be in captivity, then it is the responsible humans duty to ensure a life of some quality for the animal. One aspect of this is to ensure that it is intellectually, as well as socially and physically, in an appropriate environment. Failure to do this for active, intelligent, able beings is at last being recognised by zoos in Britain - it is called environmental enrichment [95; 97]. Appropriate circus training can also act as occupational therapy, but because of inter-species communication it could be of an even more enriching nature perhaps!
• The essence of circus training is that it concentrates on the individual. Every animal has a name, and his personality known and is discussed at length. Zoos, by contrast, actively discourage this. There is in many zoos a sort of unspoken belief that recognising and naming individuals, and having emotional relationships with them, is unscientific, and therefore to be discouraged. The zoos self-confessed aim is to have exhibits that are good representations of the species [9]. There may be a place for zoos, but there is equally a place for circuses which are doing something rather different.
          The recognition of an animal as an individual, to be related to, with the possibility of having the whole gamut of desires, emotions, likes and dislikes is I believe crucial in the development of equal consideration and respect for other sentient beings. The public recognise this intuitively. The first thing many people want to know about an animal is what is his name? (i.e. to identify with the animal as an individual) [see also 98]. The circus can demonstrate this, particularly in the informality of its approach, where many of the animals are tethered round the encampment and some even running free.
          They can interact directly with human beings, experience each other, touch, feel, and smell each other in a way which is not usually possible in zoos or any other enterprise where wild species are kept. In one hour in a London park, I counted over 200 adults and children who went up to a tethered camel, looked into her eye, touched, stroked and talked to her. I cannot help feeling that both species benefited from such direct encounters and go away with a little more mutual respect for each other. To be subjective, I know I do, and I have reason to believe that my reaction is species typical.
• The circus (the only place where many species are trained) can increase the quality of life for the animal and the human by allowing for the development of positive emotional relationships (affection, in other words) between species. Unfortunately, the idea that emotional relationships between species cannot be as admirable, rewarding and exciting as those within species has not received the attention it deserves. Ladies who prefer cats to children are described as substituting and slightly cranky, and an animals affection for a human is described as mal- imprinting (science for something gone wrong in the wiring), neither of which is necessarily the case.
         One of the most exciting and interesting findings in the circuses was this mutual respect, trust and affection I often found between the animals - big cats, elephants, zebras, horses, dogs, pigs, llamas and so on - and their trainers and handlers.
• Provided the circus is presented in an appropriate way, the audiences respect, interest and delight in all the animals can be enhanced greatly. They can learn a great deal about the surprising abilities and intelligence of the various animals. Did you know, for example, that an elephant can find and pick up with her trunk a diamond a quarter the size of your thumbnail thrown down in the sawdust of the ring?
• This close association between human and animal inevitably leads to greater knowledge of the species and the individual. Studying the animals in the wild may give us a general background of the species behaviour, but in order to learn as much as we can about individuals, some interaction with the animals becomes the next step, as Jane Goodall found with chimpanzees, and the Adamsons found with lions. Having a close daily association with animals, training and looking after them adds considerably to our knowledge of their world view, how they respond and feel, what they can learn, how fast they learn, and so on. The circus, where the animals have already learnt to cooperate with humans, is an ideal place for several types of behavioural research. For example, I have much information on slight behavioural differences in the big cats - leopards, tigers and lions - that have not been reported before. Information on cognitive behaviour can also be accumulated; and of course it is an ideal place to study training itself. Thus to assume that nothing can be learnt from circuses and that they cannot contribute to research is clearly silly. Why, for example, do zoo managements often have to hire circus people when they have problems handling or transporting their animals?
• There is another and important aspect to the circus: it is art. As cognitive behavioural studies begin to confirm what trainers often take for granted, and many philosophers have argued for: that animals think; certain animals can use symbols, can count, can conceptualise and so on [50; 108], the distinctions made between the psychological abilities of humans and other higher mammals becomes ever more hazy. For a moment, give the animals the benefit of the doubt and consider whether or not animals could have an aesthetic appreciation, could they not also be creative, imaginative, innovative and have some sense of humour? There is plenty of anecdotal evidence for all these abilities, mostly, I think it is significant to point out, from animal trainers.

Presenters and trainers

As a rule, the training in circuses is professional; negative reinforcement was used infrequently and there were no indications of cruelty. What the animals were taught lacked innovation and imagination. The main criticism of the training was that there are very few real trainers in Britain (about six). Almost all the wild animal training is in the hands of one family. The other main criticism was that in British circuses at least there was not enough training being practised, and it was not innovative or always appropriate for the species.

Usually, the animals are trained by a trainer and then they are hired out to a circus; this may be anywhere in the world. Sometimes the animals will go with their groom or presenter to the circus; occasionally the circus proprietor will be the trainer and will keep and present the act; but more usually a presenter is hired who will spend a few weeks with the trainer learning how to present the act in front of the audience. The trainer trains the presenter. There must be a period of becoming mutually familiar for the animals and the presenter before they leave with the act. Some presenters were obviously very serious about their animals and took enormous pains and worked very long hours to iron out any problems before they left with the animals; others were slap-dash and were clearly in the business because of the dashing figure they could cut in the ring rather than their fundamental interest in the animals.

The trainers are usually strict about not letting presenters change the act or try to teach their animals other tricks. This is partly out of professional pride in their own act, but also because it is recognised that as a rule presenters do not have the know-how to train the animals properly and everything may go wrong if they try. Often trainers complain bitterly about the presenters when the animals return, usually on the grounds that the animals have got into bad habits which will take time to overcome.

The reason why the training (when it occurred) was so professional was probably that it is an extremely demanding, exacting, time- and patience-consuming job. Its skills are little recognised by the majority of people and it has little glamour attached, except among the small circle of other animal trainers and circus people. Thus anyone who was not seriously interested in the animals for their own sake would find much more glamorous and better paid jobs to do in the circus.

Anyone can become a circus trainer; usually, however, they are born into the circus and begin to learn to train and present animals almost before they can walk. It is possible to start as a groom, the bottom of the circus hierarchy, and gradually work up to be a presenter and then a trainer. Some people who wish to make the circus their life, after a period as a groom and/or presenter, will buy one or two animals, train them, and then try to get hired by a circus for a season.

It seemed that the personality of the trainer, their interest, skill and persistence, were much more important in their success than any tricks of the trade. Thus I found the trainers, in general, happy to talk about their methods and training schedules. However, they are very conscious of how easy it is to learn how to train. This does not mean that anyone will be able to do it but often grooms, having witnessed a few training sessions, will try to set themselves up as trainers. This is usually unsuccessful. It takes years of experience and dedication to become a good trainer. As a result, most circus trainers liked to cultivate a slight air of mystery about their job - but they were delighted to engage in hours of discussion about individual animals personalities.

There was great deal of repetition in what the animals were taught and what the acts consisted of. This may be partly because most trainers have learnt at their fathers knee, partly because of shortage of time available for training, partly lack of thought and partly the sometimes stultifying hold of tradition.

The trainer is, to a degree, caught in a double bind. The act must be innovative: the animals doing new and different things. At the same time, the circus must be traditional. It is assumed, probably wrongly, that people go to the circus because they know they will see the same sort of things, and the circus itself is proud of its traditions.

The act must also be spectacular. Often this can be achieved by elaborate props and presenters and sometimes animal costumes and harnesses, rather than sophisticated animal training. The difficult acts to train may well be less popular or less spectacular so there is not necessarily a force to progress and improve training, except from the trainers peers. The reverse is often the case - popular or spectacular acts may often be very easy to train.

Fig. 61. A movement at least ressembling the attack of the tiger. Is this an appropriate act showing the abilities and skill of the tiger, and the rnutual trust between presenter and tiger, or does it simply show the trainers courage and machoism?

The trainer must have the animals do what the audience likes to see. If they like attack trained big cats (where the cats are trained to look as if they are attacking the presenter) they must train them so, even though the trainer may not like this representation of the cats. Audiences vary in what they like from culture to culture; for example, attack-trained cats go down well in the US and Southern Europe, but some Northern European audiences dont like them at all. It would be possible for the circus to change the publics attitude by, for example, presenting exciting acts enhancing the litheness, grace and affection of the cats, instead of their ferocity.

Trainers and tradition

The trainer is near the top of the circus hierarchy: in part because of this, some are not very willing to learn; they are often bound by tradition, and may consider they know it all! The usual way to become a trainer is to be born into a circus proprietors family, although as mentioned, it is possible to work ones way up. The trainers are still very jealous about their skills. Training in the circus world (as well as outside it) is surrounded with secrets, mystic and magic. Trainers seem almost frightened that their secrets will out and then everyone will want to be a circus trainer once they realise that there are no secrets - it is simply hard work, experience and skill!

This is unfortunate and obviously not the case since very few people would be interested in putting in the time, dedication and patience to learn the skills (often under very difficult conditions) for the proper training of circus animals. One Swiss circus realised this, and has open, genuine training sessions for the public and always attract a group of devotees who sit all morning watching the slow training of the various animals for the next years acts, and come back the following year to see how they have progressed.

Over 90% of the circus audiences who returned our questionnaire wanted to see the animals being trained (Appendix 3). Open training sessions are vital if circuses are going to dispel the publics suspicion about cruelty, inappropriate training, and fulfil the role in educating the public about the amazing abilities of the animals, and the sophistication possible in inter-species communications. Unfortunately, it does not happen as a matter of daily routine in any British circus (although I have repeatedly suggested to them that they should have open training sessions). The closest that they have come is to have rehearsals of the trained or almost trained animals. They are, I think, unsure about allowing the public to see the training in case things do not always work well, which of course they do not; yet how it is sorted out when things go wrong is one of the most interesting aspects.

The other reason why circuses are loathe to have open training sessions is because there are very few trainers in Britain, and each circus does not have a trainer who is actively training and travelling with them. This is one of the major criticisms of British circuses: there is not enough training and not enough good trainers. Some acts remain the same year in year out and the benefits of training which I have mentioned are then certainly not fulfilled.

Conclusion

The field of animal handling and training is one where little serious thought on the ethics and ethological appropriateness of various systems has yet been devoted. This study of animal training in circuses suggests that some of the widely held beliefs concerning training are not necessarily correct; for example, evidence for serious or prolonged cruelty, suffering and distress in the animals during or as a result of the training in circuses was absent in the 200 hours I studied.

It is necessary to understand the importance of avoiding frightening animals in training (because it is then that they may well be dangerous). As a result, it is not surprising to find that positive reinforcement was used in the training of circus animals more widely and more frequently than negative reinforcement.

The other criticisms that animal welfare organisations have for animals trained for circuses are concerned with possible loss of natural dignity, by the performance of unnatural behaviour, and the idea that the only thing demonstrated by animal training is the domination of the animals by the humans. These concerns have been discussed briefly. There is no necessity to ensure domination; a more appropriate approach is one of cooperation. The trainer or educators job is to motivate the student/animal to learn. Positive reinforcement and emotional bonds between animals and human are usually more effective in achieving this. There are positive things that, provided the animals show no evidence of prolonged distress and are kept in ecologically and ethologically sound environments (see Chapter 9), animal training in circuses can contribute to our respect and understanding of other sentient beings. These positive things are:

a) captive animals should be able to be handled safely in order to reduce chances of suffering during normal routine management, including veterinary care;

b) training or educating the animal can act as a form of occupational therapy for animals, and they can apparently enjoy it;

c) the essence of circus training is that it concentrates on the individual, and respect for him or her, and allows direct experience of the individual;

d) the circus is the only place where many species are trained and it can increase the quality of life for both human and animal by allowing emotional bonds to develop;

e) provided the circus is presented appropriately, the audiences respect, interest and delight in all the animals can be enhanced;

f) the close individual association between animal and human inevitably leads to greater mutual knowledge and understanding;

g) circus animal acts, properly presented and appropriate for the species and individual, can enhance the respect, joy and wonder of the human observers. It can be an inter-species art form, demonstrating also the sophistication possible of inter-species communication, and the animals creativity and innovation.

It is thus concluded that there is no reason why circus training, any more than any other animal training, of its nature causes suffering and distress to the animals, or should be considered ethically unacceptable. There are bad circus trainers, just as there are bad teachers and bad parents, but this does not argue for the banning of circuses, any more than for schools or parenthood. However, there should be more appropriate acts trained to allow the animals to show their unique abilities and personalities and enhance human respect and admiration. There is a strong argument to establish a training school for all animal trainers and ensure that there is a well- qualified trainer travelling with each circus, and actively training the animals.

Properly done, the training of circus animals can, on balance, benefit both animals and humans, and lead to greater inter-species knowledge.