Alexander Lacey - Animal Protection

Animal Protection


Download

Animal protection is our most important issue

We both loved having the opportunity to care and work with all sorts of exotic animals at our parents’ zoo and later on the circus from a very young age. It was never expected of us by our parents to follow in their footsteps. Caring for animals properly is a very demanding and time consuming occupation. However we both decided during our education at boarding school that when we were finished we would do just that. We love the big cats.
The most painful thing which can happen to us in dealing with our big cats isn’t being bitten by a lion, or having a tiger scratch us. That’s an occasional hazard of our business and something we put up with in working with animals as fascinating as ours.  What really hurts us is being accused of using our animals for our profit. It pains us that people believe we’d risk their physical and psychological welfare, because for us, our lions and tigers are family members. We love them and we care deeply for them. Their health and welfare are our most important issues.

But we don’t only care about the animals we’re dealing with on a daily base. It’s our dearest wish that our and your grandchildren will be able to watch lions, tigers, elephants and rhinos in the wild. We want the wildlife habitats to be protected, we want poaching stopped, and the ruthless exploitation of nature to cease.  We’re convinced that our work in the circus supports matters of animal protection.

We believe that humans can only love and protect what they really know; that’s one purpose of having animals in our shows. It offers the visitors a chance, not only to watch fascinating, exotic animals at close quarters, but to get to know and to care for them as individuals.  The circus allows us to demonstrate that big cats aren’t only predators and perfect killing machines, but are also playful and tender. The circus helps people to feel and to see that tigers and lions are intelligent animals, capable of subtle interactions among each other and willing to build up a relationship with humans. All living things learn, so why deny animals the right to learn and interact with humans?

Our trust in our lions and tigers isn’t only based on our lifelong experience with big cats and our feelings for them, but on knowledge and competence, too. We use every opportunity to talk to and work with behaviour scientists, veterinaries and biologists. We want to learn as much as possible about our animals and we want to share our knowledge about them.

Hence it’s painful for us to be accused of cruelty and ignorance against our animals. We know that most of the people engaged in animal protection mean well, and we understand and appreciate their concern about wild animals in zoo and circuses. However, a lot of the accusations directed at us are simply wrong.

About wild animals and their “freedom”

Let’s talk about the accusations and what we think and know about.

For example: “Wild animals shouldn’t be snatched away from their natural habitats”. 
Yes, we think so, too. Unfortunately wild animals are constantly being persecuted and there are not enough safe wild places left, and so orphaned animals may find their way into zoos. Also because the size of the wild areas are shrinking surplus animals are often culled or removed and also find their way into zoos, as long as these animals are cared for properly their new gene pool is extremely important in the breeding programmes of zoos and circuses. All of our lions and tigers were bred in by our family – and in most cases, they are the offspring of cats which have lived for generations in our family. We are currently up to our 10th generation of lions and 8th generation of tigers. Because we have absolutely no inbreeding the result is extremely mentally and physically healthy animals.
The only animals not bred by our family are Martin’s white lions. They came from other breeding stations. However, white lions couldn’t even survive in the wild; they need humans to care for them.

Another accusation which we often hear: “Animals need their freedom.” 
That always makes us think of a story the Swiss zoo manager and behaviour scientist Heini Hediger wrote about in one of his books. In his zoo in Zurich, it happened rather often that an ape escaped his cage. Most of the time, the ape then sat on a tree in the zoo; he didn’t really know what to do with his “freedom”.   To catch him, Hediger’s team used a little trick:  they showed the ape a snake. Apes are very afraid of snakes – and so the escapee usually took flight by running as quickly as possible back into his cage. One of the apes even closed the door behind himself. For him and his mates, the cage wasn’t a prison, but a home in which they felt protected and safe.

That’s the point one should think about when using the word “freedom” in connection with animals. For them, “freedom” means constant threat due to predators, shortages of food, living with the inconveniences of nature like cold, drought and thunderstorms, and being in mortal danger from the slightest injury. A zebra stumbling into a hole and going lame could become the next victim of hunting lionesses, because it’s not able to flee quickly any more. A lion with a thorn in his paw might have difficulty hunting – and if he’s so unlucky that the thorn causes inflammation, might then become too weak to hunt at all, and will die from starvation.

Another element humans connect with “freedom” is the ability to go wherever one wants. Yet animals don’t have this kind of liberty. Even the mighty tiger can’t move freely in the jungle. His freedom is restricted by the borders of his territory. The same goes for lions. If they would try to hunt in the territory of another pride, it could cost them their lives, because lions protect their territory with all their power.

We can’t ask our animals if they’d prefer living “free” in the wild or in the enclosures we offer them. But we’re convinced that their lives in our care are better than the lives of their wild relatives. Our animals needn't starve; they don't have to protect their territories; and they get the very best veterinary care if they’re injured or sick, specialists are flown in if need be, they have a great health plan. We have two examples which prove to us that our cats are well cared for:  while in the wild, lions rarely live beyond nine years, we work with much older lions, like Alexander’s Masai who’s 16 years old, and still enjoying his work in the ring, and Martin’s old lioness Flo, who lived and was still working (at a much gentler pace) at the age of 26 years.

The second point in this matter: our animals are procreating. If we allowed them, our lady tigers and lionesses would have cubs every second year. However, we only breed for our own need. We don’t want to sell animals, hence we only breed as many as we can properly raise and train for our acts.

Another allegation we often get to hear: “Dressage is cruelty against animals because it’s based on force.” In all honesty, we don’t have a death wish, thank you very much. If we tried to force our lions and tigers, if we used aggressive methods in training our animals, we could count on them to become aggressive towards us. This certainly wouldn’t enhance our chances to come out of the cage in one piece.

The art of training animals is based on their natural behaviour, on trust, and on positive motivation. We don’t “force” our four legged partners, but instead use their playfulness and their need to be entertained. We put our faith in their trusting us as their “alpha animals”, and in their wish to be praised and rewarded by us. For our animals, training and performances are fun and entertainment – and if they aren’t in the mood for going into the ring, we let them be, accepting their “no, not today” as an expression of their individuality.

“The constant travelling of a circus is stressful for the animals”. We have never felt this therefore we wanted to know for sure. Hence Martin got his lions tested on a winter tour from Monte Carlo to Munich, a journey totalling 1200 km and much further than the usual journey of approximately  60 km during our summer season tour. The tests were done by the renowned behaviour scientist Dr. Immanuel Birmelin and the result was absolutely clear: none of the lions, not even the cubs, showed any stress symptoms. Like true cats, they spent almost all of their time napping in their travelling areas.

We’re glad that we can now show data and facts for this. Yet the result didn’t amaze us in the slightest. We watched our animals on travels over many years, and we never observed them becoming nervous or stressed. Our lions and tigers are used to travelling, they are born into it.  In contrast to us, who must find our way around in every new city, the travelling doesn’t cause many changes in the lives of our four-legged partners. Their enclosures are always put up in the same order; their routine stays the same, whether we are at the Northern Sea, at the Cote d’Azur, in Southern Germany, or in our winter quarters.

Tigers and Lions have an extremely good sense of smell and hearing, so what is great about travelling from one location to another is that the animals are always experiencing different views from their enclosures different terrains under foot (paw) different smells and different sounds and all of this is very interesting for them and makes for a lot of variation. While the enclosures we have for our animals are large enough, it is not the size of the enclosure that equals contentment but the quality of animal husbandry dispensed by the circus that is important.

We do appreciate and respect the people who engage themselves in animal protection. We understand and think it important that they are critical towards zoos and circus. That’s why we wish to be asked questions and given a chance to show our animals, to explain what we are doing with them, and why we believe that the circus needs animals.

Yours sincerely 
Alexander Lacey
Martin Lacey jnr

Summer 2010