PERFORMING ANIMALS

Evening Star, Issue 18033, 29 July 1922, Page 14

PERFORMING ANIMALS

SELECT COMMITTEE’S REPORT. The report of the Select Committee on Performing Animals, over which Brigadier-general Colvin presided, has been issued as a British Parliamentary paper. The committee was first appointed on Jnlv 12, 1921, and reappointed on February 22, 1922, to inquire into the conditions under which performing animals are trained and exhibited, and to consider whether legislation is desirable to prohibit or regulate such training and exhibition, and, if so. what lines such legislation should follow. The committee held twelve public meetings at which forty-three witnesses wore examined, the evidence embracing a period of about twentyfive years. It is convinced that there have been in the past, and certainly still are, many cases of ill-treatment and wanton cruelty in the training and performances of animals; hut, generally speaking, there has been a marked improvement in the care and treatment of animals during recent years. The growth of the humanitarian spirit in Great Britain will bo a further safeguard to animals which perform m public. The committee is of the opinion that there are certain exhibitions and acts which are undesirable. Performances in which the animal is terrorised, or in which it incurs anj risk of injury should not bo permitted, and any protection that is afforded to any classes of performing animals should he extended to animals figuring in film productions. In its summary and recommendations the committee states that it is satisfied that certain charges of cruelty have been established, and that stops should he taken to prevent their recurrence. It is impressed with tin; honest and genuine desire of the profession to eliminate every possibility of cruelty and ill-treatment, and with its willingness to co-operate with tho societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals in restricting performances to such as will meet with general approval. Tho committee is thetrcforc of opinion;—(I.) That tho exhibition of all performing animals should not bo prohibited ; (2) that measures _ should be taken for the better supervision of trainers, training establishments, and ail animal performances; (3) that the penalties imposed have proved generally inadequate. The committee recommends:—

(a) That a Committee of Supervision should bo appointed, consisting of a chairman and four members to be appointed by the Home Secretary, two members by animal protection societies, and two members by the profession, with power to increase their number to thirteen in like proportion; that five members should constitute a quorum, or seven if the committee is enlarged; and that this committee should have the power of prohibiting, restricting, suspending, and modifying any performance or the training of animals for any specified performance or exhibition which considers it undesirable on the ground, of cruelty to tho animals engaged in it. (b) That all persons who train animals for public exhibition or performance, and the places whore they train them, should be registered.

(c) That a representative of the local or borough county council, the officers of the R.S'.P.C.A., and the police should have access at all times, without previous notice given, to tho places where animals are trained, and to any at which performing animals are engaged. (d) That in view of the fact that the committee would have no control over training abroad, the committee should have power to prohibit the performances of animals trained abroad in those cases where in its opinion tho conditions of their training involved cruelty. (e) That the training and performances of all chimpanzees and of all anthropoid apes should be prohibited. (f) That tho training, exhibition, and performances of ail the larger carnivora (such as lions, tigers, leppards, and hyenas) should have tho special attention of the Committee of Supervision. (g) That the use of mechanical and other appliances in the execution of conjuring tricks, which involve cruelty, should he prohibited. (h) That the penalties for cruelty to animals should be revised and increased.