Bucharest City Council (CGMB) is to vote this week on a draft decision that would ban the use of wild and domestic animals in circuses and exhibitions, reports local News.ro.

The City Hall says that the animals used in circuses and exhibitions suffer and can face psychological, health, and behavioral problems, as the tricks they have to perform “require extreme physical constraint techniques” such as starvation and the use of whips, metal bars, and electrical shocks.

According to the project’s explanatory memorandum, the spaces offered by the circuses and exhibitions’ cages can’t cover the needs of those species that travel long distances in freedom, or which live in large groups in the wilderness. The big cats such as lions and tigers are usually the most affected.

Moreover, the animals could escape the improvised and temporary installations of the travelling circuses, this representing a risk for the public and the circuses’ employees. Another argument is that children could get wrong or dangerous messages from these kinds of shows, which would be related to violence and cruelty, and could see images with an important emotional impact.

However, it’s not really clear if the project refers to both wild and domestic animals. In the draft decision’s article 1, the City Hall refers to animals “belonging to the vertebrates category, regardless of the degree of taming, born in captivity or taken from their natural habitat.” However, according to the explanatory memorandum, the project refers only to wild animals, reports local News.ro.

Moreover, the document also includes the points of view of the Romanian National Felinological Federation and Ilpan Jr – the organizer of PetExpo event, which argue that the current form of the draft decision can create confusion in the interpretation of the text, and this could affect the organization of exhibitions and other events with domestic animals. The two associations want the article 1 to be changed by introducing the sentence “wild animals, regardless of their level of taming.” They also want the exhibitions, shows or other events involving pet animals accompanied by their owners to be exempted from the project.

Earlier this year, Bucharest’s Globus Circus has banned the use of wild animals in its shows, following a decision of CGMB. The decision to ban the use of wild animals in circus shows came after a building housing animals of the Globus Circus in Bucharest caught fire, leaving 11 animals dead.

Moreover, the trainers at Constanta Dolphinarium have already started to give up some of the acrobatic tricks the dolphins were doing to entertain the public, and plan to stop these kind of performances for good.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com