A circus in China on its website, China Tour Online, says their park “offers animal performances, showing the charm and skill of the animals and their gift in performing.” Why any animal should have a “gift” for performing is one question to ask, but what these animals are in fact enduring is another matter entirely. Recently a video from their show went viral in which they force a bear and two monkeys to ride bicycles in circles, only for one of the monkeys to fall off its bike, and the bear to subsequently attack and maul the poor beast, as circus clowns hit the bear ineffectually with sticks.
The animal cruelty is blatant – and if we ever felt nervous about going to a normal circus, something like this can only intensify that sentiment.
The Shanghai Wild Animal Park in China, which has advertised its “Wild Animal Olympics,” and which is the source of this gruesome footage, has made bears box one another, kangaroos box humans, and monkeys lift weights, as reported by Mail Online.
Though the crowd was laughing and cheering as the animals were riding on the bicycles in this video, the rest of us viewers can only be appalled that this still counts as entertainment.