In this excerpt from the witness evidence in his defamation trial, Chris Packham describes his experiences with circuses and, in particular big cats such as tigers, one of which bit him on the back of the neck. (See also earlier blogs.)
I was taken to circuses repeatedly as a child in Southampton because the well-known Chipperfield Circus family held their animals at Southampton City Zoo to which I begged my mother to take me to every day when I was young.
Then, throughout my time with the Really Wild Show, I was fortunate to work with a lot of big cats, for instance at Dartmoor Zoo and Windsor Safari Park where my colleague and mentor Terry Nutkins was General Manager.
We had frequent and close contact with the larger cats that were kept here in the 1970s and 80s.
I spent a lot of time looking after two sets of two lion cubs that originated at Windsor in the late 1980s.
I helped rear them for about eight months before they were relocated to Longleat Safari Park.
I came into contact with many big cats while filming for the Really Wild Show abroad.
Later, I did a lot of work at AfriCat (then an animal rescue charity in Namibia) both with cheetahs that had been caught, or poisoned, and with 'problem' lions and leopards which had killed farm stock or humans.
These were trapped and either relocated or placed in very big enclosures.
Some of the younger animals were hand reared and thus tame, and we would interact with the cheetahs, wild dogs and lions.
By the late 1980s / early 1990s, the use of wild animals in circuses was starting to become more widely unpopular, and a few ex-circus animals were ending up at Longleat.
I remember Mary Chipperfield coming to Longleat when we were filming an episode of the Really Wild Show there in around 1989/90.
We had an audience of children and a young Indian elephant was not doing what Mary Chipperfield wanted it to do, so she started beating it with a stick in front of the children.
I was appalled and told Paul Appleby, the producer, that “it’s either her or me - get rid of her or I’m going home”.
The piece did not go out live, but the children saw it.
I refused to have anything to do with Mary Chipperfield again after that.
I also had a discussion with the BBC about the use of animals for filming at a time when they were being supplied by a company called Amazing Animals.
The company was run by Jim Clubb, a long time associate of the Chipperfield circus family, who is married to Sally Chipperfield.
It is a major supplier of animals for television, advertising and films.
I was sent videos of undercover filming by a charity called Animals Defenders International (ADI) which appeared to reveal that the owners and staff at Mazing Animals managed the creatures using similar principles to those commonly used in circuses.
In particular, the use of primates in entertainment (a common feature of TV advertising such as PG Tips in the 1980s) gave rise to very serious welfare issues.
These intelligent, social animals were usually taken from their mothers at an early age so that they bond and become reliant upon their trainer, leading to psychological and behavioural problems that plagued them for the rest of their lives.
The BBC had engaged Amazing Animals to provide creatures for a variety of shows and programmes.
These included lions, squirrel monkeys, Humboldt penguins and Asiatic black bears.
In about 2010, I came to an agreement with the BBC that I would never be required to work on a programme where the services of Amazing Animals were employed.
In 2015, the charity Freedom for Animals visited Heythrop Zoo, where Amazing Animals is based, and recorded scenes that could have come straight from a circus.
Jim Clubb was exposed in 2021 for keeping large numbers of animals in restricted spaces, away from their natural habitat and unable to exercise their intelligence and natural behaviour - I recall having read about this in the Press.
In recent years, Mr Clubb was also featured by the media for taking white lions from West Midlands Safari Park, training them, and sending them to a Japanese circus.
In the 1990s, I was a trustee of the Marwell Trust and worked with the big cat keepers there for two or three years.
Again, this gave me close up experience of big cat species, much of that related to behavioural enrichment schemes developed to replicate conditions and experiences these animals would expect in the wild.
Around this time, I was also approached by Jan Creamer, President of ADI, to help with their Stop Circus Suffering campaign.
In addition to lobbying governments and municipalities, the campaign included hard-hitting evidence from undercover investigations.
I saw most of this footage.
It showed the Chipperfields beating lions and tigers with metal crowbars and pipes, whipping a sick elephant, thrashing camels with broom handles and beating a baby chimpanzee with a horse whip while screaming at her as she wailed.
I have never forgotten what I witnessed.
It is some of the most horrific imagery and video in terms of animal cruelty - and this was regular circus training technique.
I am proud of my association with the campaign, which saw many successes and helped introduce legislation banning the use of wild animals in circuses in 48 countries worldwide.
I recall that, in 1999, the Chipperfields were found guilty of animal cruelty and I have seen how public support for wild animal circuses has never recovered.
A UK-wide ban finally came into force in 2020 and has received widespread public support.
I was aware of these legislative changes through my work with the ADI and other zoos and charities.
I was also aware that the situation in Spain was more complicated because it has a federalised structure and, while some regions started to ban the use of animals in circuses, others did not.
That started to make it more difficult for circuses to stay afloat in Spain as they were restricted to performing in particular areas.
In 2007, I met Charlotte, my partner, through the zoo she had inherited from her parents.
By that time, the tide of opinion had turned firmly against having wild animals perform in circuses in the UK.
There was pressure from animal welfare charities on the government to introduce legislation banning the use of wild animals in circuses.
There were also some oddities around that time, including local loopholes that enabled circuses to keep using wild animals.
For example, elephants were brought into Norfolk by travelling circuses coming from Europe as the legislation was not tight enough, and pro-circus individuals persuaded some Conservative MPs in the South-west to vote against the Wild Animals in Circuses Bill.
One individual who voted against the bill was Simon Hart MP, the former head of the Countryside Alliance.
Wales and Ireland were the first UK countries to ban the use of wild animals in circuses completely, but at last the Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 was passed in England and Wales.
The Act came into effect in January 2020 at which time there remained only two circuses with wild animal licences based in the UK.
A particular problem with circuses is that they’re continually on the move - it is stressful for an animal to be continually moved from one location to another in a cage or container - referred to in the industry as a ‘beast wagon’.
Very often they are in cramped and overcrowded conditions which can cause animals to exhibit self-mutilation or to tear pieces out of each other.
The transient nature of circuses makes it very difficult to provide consistent conditions for the animals in terms of temperature, access to veterinary care, appropriate diet and so on.
I have seen - through my work in many environments around the world - how content wild animals are when able to express natural behaviour and how this contrasts with the demeanour of the wild animals I have seen in circuses.
These wild animals can be tamed but are not domesticated like dogs and cats.
Just because they have been born in captivity this does not make them domesticated.
It has taken many thousands of years of captivity for dogs to become domesticated.
Dogs look at your face - they can look at your mouth and eyes and work out what you are thinking.
It’s co-evolved behaviour - there is a relationship of mutual understanding which does not exist with tamed wild animals.
Even if big cats are born in captivity, they want to kill things.
People hand-feed tigers inside their enclosures every day and say that they have a good relationship with the tiger and that it is excited to see them.
But, if you run away from that big cat, it will chase after you and could bite the back of your neck. It is instinctive response.
I know this because it has happened to me!
So quite apart from whether a tiger has a comfortable home or enough food, keeping a wild animal in these conditions and expecting it to perform unnecessary behaviour - such as circus tricks - is wholly unnatural and inappropriate.
It is also cruel.
Animals are not here for our entertainment.
We are no longer in the days of Colosseum games or the Middle Ages. It is 2023 - we know better.
* To be continued
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