Big cat stars of TV forced to put on a show for the crowd
Campaigners attack ‘abominable’ animal hire firm used by BBC
AS a keeper cracks two sticks together, two lions balance on their hind legs for a paying audience.
Other caged animals including a polar bear and a leopard are also forced to perform on command for the public at Heythrop Zoo in Oxfordshire.
The site is the home of Amazing Animals, a company which hires out wild animals for films, pop videos and TV shows. They have appeared in BBC1 drama Monarch Of The Glen and a trailer for The Voice, as well as adverts for brands including Renault, Waitrose, Costa Coffee, uSwitch and Tesco Mobile.
But campaigners have raised doubts over conditions at Amazing Animals, which holds occasional open days, charging £13 a head for adults. It has a licence to keep wild animals, but may not open to the public for more than six days a year without becoming a licensed zoo.
The campaigners said footage taken at one open day suggested mistreatment could be happening behind closed doors to train the animals.
BBC naturalist Chris Packham called the company ‘appalling, abominable’ and ‘morally bankrupt’. The host of Springwatch and Autumnwatch has told corporation bosses he refuses to have anything to do with Jim Clubb, the owner of Amazing Animals, after hearing ‘nothing but negative reports’ from people who have filmed there.
Amazing Animals supplied a polar bear for film The Golden Compass, a tiger and crocodile for ITV’s A Touch Of Frost, a panther for Monarch Of The Glen, a lion for TV series Jekyll, as well as numerous wild and farm animals for BBC1 drama series Our Zoo and CBeebies’ Big Barn Farm. Its website says it is the source of most exotic animals in the UK and that its livestock comes under the care of the International Zoo Veterinary Group.
But investigators from the Captive Animals Protection Society claimed its enclosures are so barren that they are likely to cause suffering. CAPS said big cats held at Heythrop were showing signs of stress such as swaying or head-tilting. Footage shows a white tiger pacing close to a glass window, weaving up and down unnaturally. Campaigners also claim the penguin pool is not big enough to fit in all the pentoday guins at once, the hippo enclosure appears to be only concrete with a dirtylooking pool and a bit of straw, and that a cockatoo has been kept in a small, inadequate cage.
Mr Packham called the Amazing Animals shows ‘a ghastly Victorian circus’. ‘The fact that this is going on in the UK is appalling,’ he said. ‘The beating of sticks at tigers in front of an audience is likely to be done to replicate the sound of a whip. This is abominable.’
Henry Smith MP, Tory cochairman of the All-Party Group on Animal Welfare, said he was concerned after seeing the CAPS evidence and called for the law to be tightened.
He said: ‘Asking big cats to do tricks is an outdated practice that has echoes of Edwardian circuses.’
Labour’s Jim Fitzpatrick said: ‘Wild cats performing tricks is neither natural, nor dignified nor appropriate in the 21st century.’
There is no suggestion that programme-makers or advertisers were aware of allegations of animal suffering. Heythrop Zoo is registered under the Dangerous Wild Animal Act 1976. A licence is valid for two years. It requires an annual inspection. The date of the last inspection is not known.
Mr Clubb declined to respond to requests to comment. The BBC also declined to respond.
‘Morally bankrupt’