Wild Animals in Circuses (No. 2) Bill (Second sitting)

Trudy Harrison Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st May 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Reeves]

Q How often do they have to be transported?

Carol MacManus: We move once a week, on a Sunday.

Peter Jolly: We move once a week.

Carol MacManus: Then they have two days off, because generally we do not work on Monday and Tuesday, and then they work—if you can call it work—from Wednesday to Sunday. They appear for about two minutes in the circus ring. They are not over-stressed.

Peter Jolly: Ours are the same.

Carol MacManus: In 2013, we had 85,000 attendants at our circus. We know that some people are saying, “Oh, we’re not doing very well this year,” but with animals we seem to be doing fine. People come to see our animals.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

Q Mr Jolly, you referred to your two racoons and your fox, zebra and camels. If there was a ban, what would happen to those animals?

Peter Jolly: Nothing. I would change my business to something else, but the animals would stop with me.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q What proportion are they of the entertainment you provide with the circus? What other acts does it include? I have not been to your circus myself.

Peter Jolly: Clowns, acrobats, wire walking, juggling, a western act, an eastern act.

[Trudy Harrison]

Surely you would not want to give all that up if wild animals were not permitted in circuses.

Peter Jolly: I would. It is my 70th year this year, so I am not going to change from doing the animals now. I have done them all my life, so I am not going to change now.

Carol MacManus: I do not really know. I have not really got a plan. I have inquired, and several places would take them. I do not really want to give them away but I cannot see them happy at home—they would not be happy at home on their own. The other animals would carry on travelling with the circus. So, I do not really know. I have not got that far yet.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Did you say that the wild animals would continue to travel with the circus?

Carol MacManus: No, I did not say that.

[Trudy Harrison]

I am sorry; I misheard you.

Carol MacManus: I said that they would not be happy being left at home.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Thank you very much for coming to give evidence. Could you talk us through a bit more about how you look after animals, and what their sleeping conditions and training regime are like? Could you talk us through an average day for the animals?

Peter Jolly: An average day starts at about 8 o’clock. My grazing animals are outside. They have inside and outside access, so it is up to them whether they go out or come in. They are cleaned, mucked out, fed any concentrated food that is required, and watered. Young animals in training go into the circus tent and are walked through, to start with. With all the animals, we walk them into the tent so that they can see the atmosphere, and we feed them as we are doing it. That might be for 15 minutes, and they then go back out into their paddocks for the rest of the day.

At 4 o’clock, we bring them in to what we call the stable tent, where they are kept before the performance, and they are groomed and checked over. If they wear any sort of headdress or harness, that is where those are fitted. They do their performance, which lasts anything up to three to four minutes. They stay in that tent until the end of the whole performance and then go back out to the grazing. That is a typical day for them.