“Zoo animals are “trained” and its pretty awful , but will research more of that.”
I think you meant circus animals. And I hope things have changed, but yes, I recall stories from years ago on how the training seemed pretty cruel to me. But, it would seem to me that in order to have a good show, the animals would need to be kept up well in order to put on a good perfomance.
I remember when my son was young (5?) and we went to the circus. We stopped outside to listen to the protestors - some were pretty over the top. We chatted with one asking questions, etc.
On the rest of the way in I talked to my son about it and how they had their opinions, and what a great country this is that they can protest things, etc. And we talked about it after seeing the show.
Funny though - it was maybe a year later and he and I were going into the hardware store. There were folks outside getting signatures for a petition to ban trapping of animals here in Washington state. I went up to the table and said “What a great idea to do this in front of a hardware store!” The gal looked at me funny, not understanding. “Well, you’re trying to ban traps - right!?” “Um, yes....”
“Well this is a great spot. To stop them from selling their traps. They have all sorts of traps in there - moles, mice, and even rats! My son here has a pet rat named Marshmallow!”
“Oh, well it isn’t to ban THOSE kinds of traps”.
“Oh - why not? Don’t you like cute little rats? I like mice better, but my son wanted a rat. But she has grown on me.”
BTW - they did pass the ban. And you can still buy rat and mouse traps, and maybe mole traps for personal use. But I think that professional exterminators may not be able to use mole traps.
Yes, I meant circus when I said cruelly trained animals.
Your post was very interesting! You write so well I could see the scenes you described!