Circus animals spend almost their entire lives on the road, moving from one makeshift encampment to another. Travelling for circus animals means unbearably long hours shut up in transporters and beast wagons. When the circus moves from one site to another, these animals may spend up to 26 hours in their transporters. In Greece this is likely to be even longer with circuses having to travel from Italy and also having to sail between islands.

Lions and tigers spend almost all of their time in small cages on the backs of lorries known as beastwagons. Elephants are chained for most of the day by one front leg and one back leg. These chains are generally only between 1.5 to 2.5 metres so an elephant is unlikely to even be able to turn around. These appalling conditions result in the animals becoming psychologically disturbed and they start showing all kinds of stereotypic behaviour, the lions and tigers constantly pace up and down their small cages and the elephants sway and bob their heads.

In the wild, elephants live for up to 60 years in large family groups, constantly on the move, travelling over 20 kilometres every day. They enjoy bathing in watering holes and socialising. Wild animals have been observed touching dead companions, sometimes placing leaves and bush over the body and using ‘graveyards’.

Sick animals have to stay on the road and pregnant animals may perform right up until they give birth. When Circus Medrano was in Athens young lion cubs were passed around the audience for people to pose for photographs with.

It isn’t so much a question of their being good or bad animal circuses. Circuses by their very nature cannot provide for their animals properly and should therefore not be allowed to keep them.

Animal trainers seen in the circus ring are often presented as having developed a loving relationship with their animals over a number of years, training them with positive reinforcement. However, it is common practice for animals to be supplied to different presenters each season.

Once an animal or group has been ‘broken’ they will probably spend the rest of their lives performing variants of the same routine. Thus after a while, this training becomes little more than reinforcement. When someone sees an animal act on tour, it is possible that the animals have been going through the routines for five, ten or even more years right down to the stage managed moments, for example when an animal is supposedly wilful and refuses to obey a command. Abuse in the form of verbal intimidation by shouting and screaming is commonplace, as is physical abuse in the form of fists, whips, sticks, spades, tent poles or any other implement that might be to hand, to apply anything from a mild smack or punch to a full-blown beating.

An animal rights group, Animal Defenders International completed a study of circuses, with their Field Officers obtaining jobs undercover in circuses in various countries in Europe. They obtained video evidence of elephants being beaten, clubbed, kicked, punched with every imaginary weapon – from spades, to brooms, to pitchforks, to buckets and a wheelbarrow. Chimpanzees were kicked and beaten. Tigers and lions were clubbed with iron bars and jabbed with spiked tent poles.

Even large and dangerous wild animals can be brought to a state of dependence upon their abuser by long-term conditioning. All of the animals that A.D.I. came across feared human beings. The tigers and lions experienced withdrawal of food for not performing well. All of the elephants observed by A.D.I. were controlled by elephant hooks.

It is likely too that the severely deprived environments in which the animals were often housed further crushes any defiance.

Frustrated, bored and barely able to move, circus animals steadily go out of their minds, developing often pronounced abnormal behaviours. There is a wide range of abnormal behaviour identified by animal keepers and behaviourists, ranging from ingrained, pointless repetitive movements and pacing, head bobbing and weaving, which are developing into more ingrained behaviours.

The CITES exemption (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) for circus allows movement of circus animals without permits or certificates, provided certain details have already been registered with the Management Authority and transport arrangements are satisfactory. However, in practice, it has not proved possible to maintain checks on circus animals.

Circuses obtain animals from a variety of sources; by breeding, buying and selling between themselves, from safari parks and zoos and from international dealers. Animals are frequently purchased or disposed of while travelling. Currently, there is no official system of identification for these animals.