S me.. he’s my back in the wild

n’t go

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him. mph e able

nimal azing nkeys films. revithe as Ross comn Jim ne of gers ngly s an injection without being tranquillised.

He says: “Jim was eager to show the benefits of animal training, but making it easier to inject his tiger felt secondary to the main purpose of training, it was a commercial enterprise.

“Whether or not people agree with the practice, it occurred to me that through consuming films, music videos, many of us are engaging with it.”

The final person Ross meets is Martin Lacey Jr, whose father bred 120 tigers in rural Lincolnshire. Martin took over the family circus business and trains big cats in Germany to perform in the big top.

When asked what the public will make of live animals in circuses, now banned in England, Scotland and Wales, Martin says: “England is a land of animal lovers but sadly they don’t understand animals.

“The animals have everything they need. You can see how good looking they are, we really take care of them. Maybe they’re brainwashed into thinking we don’t take care of our animals.”

Pressure is mounting on the Government to review the licence that allows wild animals to be privately kept. Charity Born Free is among those calling for a change in the law to end it.

Ross says: “All the animals seemed to exist in a kind of limbo. Born in captivity, they wouldn’t survive in the wild, nor could they be domesticated like a cat or dog. A life lived in cages, even big ones, was just a shadow of the environment they had evolved to inhabit.”

An earlier Netflix documentary, Tiger King, told the story of Joe Exotic, a US tiger breeder, jailed after plotting to kill an animal conservationist.

Britain’s Tiger Kings - On The Trail With Ross Kemp starts next Tuesday, ITV, 9pm