When I was six years old a circus with clowns and various exotic animals came to our city. Until that moment, I was not a circus and my grandmother decided to show me a holiday.
But I’m out of luck. Before the start of the performance, I saw a trainer beating a small dog who did not want to perform tricks.
Something snapped inside me.
When the performance began and all the children next to me laughed out loud and clapped their hands, I could not stand it and burst into tears so loud that this scream was probably heard even on the stage.
When strangers and my grandmother began to ask why I was so upset, I told them this story. I remember a gloomy silence hanging around me and adults with stone faces staring at the stage, and the girl who was sitting next to me put her face on her mother’s knees so as not to see the stage.
Just at that moment, I realized the following: this fun is not for me. Anyone who has a heart will not like the circus.
Later, other places such as dolphinariums, aquariums and zoos were added to this belief.
These are places with imaginary freedom and "comfortable" conditions. The dark side is hidden from us, where curators and trainers confuse “hard education” with banal sadism.
The industry of such entertainment makes animals do things that are not peculiar to them by nature. To do this, they break the will of the animal, destroy its natural instincts and make it another toy for the crowd.
Zoo in my city
I will not believe a single argument, because in real life not a single tiger wants to jump through a ring of fire for fun, and an elephant stand on one leg.
Not one wolf or raccoon wants to live in a cage and constantly see hundreds of camera flashes in front of him. Day after day.
Not a single dolphin would choose a life full of "funny" jumps in the ring in exchange for a f*cking fish.
Zoo in my city
When I imagine that an animal feels locked in one place and executing commands in exchange for food, I get scared. Scary and embarrassing at the same time.
We live in the 21st century, we are all modern and advanced guys. We have robots, rovers and high technologies, we strive for a comfortable future, but at the same time we still mock animals and keep them in cages.
If earlier the "entertainment" were slaves in cells and people with physical defects (features), today I am ashamed to admit that we have not gone far from such barbarism. We just replaced people with animals.
Have we acted more ethically and nobler? On the one hand, yes, but on the other, we have done even worse, because now all those who are weaker than ourselves have become a target for entertainment.