In little more than a year, several circus animal escapes in Germany have made headlines. Of the three most recent cases, two have ended in tragedy.
First, a bear escaped from a well-known zoo —
the Eifel Zoo in Luenebach — and was shot dead.
Less than a week later
a male African elephant named Kenia escaped a circus in the town of Neuwied. The pachyderm and was seen wandering the city's streets. Video of his short-lived freedom shows him calmly walking through the city. News articles joked that Kenia took a "stroll" through the small town. In reality, only prompt intervention by authorities and his keepers kept him from being killed.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for yet another German circus animal. Two circus zebras in the northern city of Rostock, Germany got out and attempted to make their way to freedom. After several efforts at trapping them, only one of the two was captured, the other
one was shot dead. When will these completely avoidable tragedies end? Animals have been banned from circuses in many European countries due to research that shows how circus situations are traumatic for all animals, in particular highly intelligent and social animals such as elephants. Wild animals should not be used as entertainment, they shouldn't be kept in tiny cages and they shouldn't be dragged from city to city.
These beautiful, living, thinking beings deserve to be free not forced to do our bidding from their births to their eventual, untimely deaths. Please join in asking Germany to follow the lead of other European countries and end animal slavery now, banning animals for being used and abused in circuses. Enough is Enough!