The use of animals for entertainment should be outlawed.
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Animals for many people are an important company in their lives, while many people consider animals of great importance, due to the company they provide to their lives, others think they are just cute creatures. On the other hand, there are also those who believe that they are in this world to make us have fun and serve us, But is it true? Do they enjoy looking at us laughing? Are they happy with all the “jobs” they have been assigned since they were born just because they are animals? What right do we have to treat them like toys or to train them against their will? Does our entertainment justify their pain? We will talk about this matter from different points of view, like ethical, social, etc.
Why we shouldn't involve animals in circus shows:
During many years, animals have been used for entertainment where they suffer many types of abuse.
For people, circus is a culture, seeing tigers, lions and sometimes also elephants, is “common”, since they grew up with shows that include animals without knowing how much they suffer just because of being born as a “circus animal”. It's not fair that they have no freedom of living in their natural habitat just for giving us "a good time".
Since the 19th century freak shows have become popular in the U.S and in Europe, where people could go and have the time of their lives making fun of individuals with specific physical conditions and/or disabilities. These "freaks'' would dance, talk, get beaten, or anything they could do to entertain people and earn a few cents. That's how Joseph Carey Merrick ("Elephant Man ''), Grace McDaniels ("The Woman With a Mule Face '') and others, were being humiliated in front of millions, while the Circus' owners were getting rich. During the 20th century the world started to notice these were horrendous, degrading and disgusting acts, and they stopped going to the shows to "protect" their rights; however, even nowadays in the 21st century, animals are still part of these shows.
Nobody talks about how they are trained through painful punishments to act against their own nature and instincts and do things they wouldn't do on their own. Tigers riding elephants, lions jumping through fire, and so it goes. We have come to the point where our own greed has blinded us and made us think we are superior and we have the right to punish and mistreat any species we consider inferior to us.
Do we need animals to have fun? Of course not, we have other sources which don't include animals.
Foreigners come to Colombia (and this also happens in other countries such as Spain) thinking that playing, taking pictures or watching animals acting in shows is culture but it’s not!
Some amusement parks with animals have been receiving hate the last few years and it is true that they are not allowed to train animals to give shows, though the problem is that those places rescue them and keep them until they recover 100%. Some of them have no permission to buy more animals, but if we stop going to parks, how can the parks feed animals if they stop receiving money? So we not only need to stop supporting these parks, but also we have to think about the future of those animals.
People might think bullfights are culture, but that just shows how selfish, ignorant, and inefficient law enforcers are in our country. In recent years, animal rights activists tried to propose a law to ban and forbid corridas de toros, and the government's response was: They will not be forbidden because they have been an important symbol of our culture, but what is worse, is that some people actually enjoy seeing bulls getting stabbed, mocked, and killed by the bullfighter, and vice versa.
In conclusion, in order to evolve as a species, we must learn to cooperate and live in harmony with any kind of life on our planet, and of course that includes animals. Some people justify their actions saying that they are beasts that lack any kind of intelligence, however, if you think about them, we are not any better. No animal species has hurt itself to almost extinction like we have. No animal species kills with evil intentions, they kill for instinct, or for survival. Throughout our history as a race we have done unforgivable things just to realize and regret 100 years later. We expect people to control their actions and stop being more "animals" than the ones they consider fair to kill. No animals should be suiting our thirst for killing.
By Nicolle Madiedo & Luis Melo, Step 10 Blue
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