Shut down this circus for animal cruelty

What do two big cats, a circus and a horse make? Disaster, that's what. That's what circus workers at Taiyang Circus in the city of Cangzhou City in China found out the hard way earlier this month. Unfortunately, the poor horse learned the hardest lesson.

The plan was to have the tiger and lion ride on the horses back. But what happened was anything but an entertaining circus trick. It all began when the lion began biting at the horse, the tiger which was also in the ring jumped in and in short order, the white horse was being mauled viciously, right in front of circus staff.

Circus staff had to beat the two cats with whips to get them to release the horse who, after escaping, was left visibly shaken, confused and bloodied.

When asked about the incident the circus spokesmen callously replied that the horse was "fine" and that it was "normal" for similar incidents to occur during rehearsals.

This is unacceptable. Never mind that using animals in circuses is cruel, but putting prey and predator animals in the same pen in a situation that likely results in one of the animals being injured or killed is not only negligent it is inhumane.

Join me in calling on the city of Cangzhou City to demand that they shut the Taiyang Circus down and end these types of cruel animal acts.