A State Of Welfare? Circus animals

If you happened to be driving along a Mallorcan road one evening and you were confronted by the sight of two tons of hippopotamus lumbering in your general direction, you might have cause to be somewhat surprised. It isn't common to just come across a hippopotamus in Mallorca, as it also isn't common to just come across a camel or a lion cub. But it isn't unknown, and the reason why is that they have all escaped in the past from circuses; Pipo the melon-eating hippo on more than one occasion.

Pipo's most recent excursion occurred in January. He (or possibly she) had previously made him or herself acquainted with Felanitx before taking a look around Marratxí. Where next? Alcúdia possibly, as Pipo has taken up residence as part of the Circo Roma Dola.

Places in Mallorca where Pipo or the odd camel or lion cub might decide to become an animal tourist are gradually becoming fewer. Capdepera is the most recent municipality to ban circuses with animals. In Spain, unlike quite a number of countries, there is no ban on animals; it is down to town halls to decide whether circuses can bring wildlife with them or not. Alcúdia says they can, Pollensa says they can't, as they also can't in Artà, Consell, Manacor, Palma, Puigpunyent, Santa María del Camí, Sóller and Valldemossa.

Pollensa town hall approved a ban in late October last year. This provoked a challenge by the association of Spanish circuses and a Balearics circus company which drew into question the legality of the ban, especially if a circus were to take place on private land. The challenge also questioned the validity of the ban as there was some alleged duress applied by the presence of AnimaNaturalis animal-rights protesters at the open session at which the ban was agreed.

AnimaNaturalis has certainly been instrumental in seeking to have animals removed from circuses. Without mentioning the group specifically, the Circo Roma Dola on its Facebook page stated that the decision to ban animals in Capdepera was one brought about solely by the desire of animal-rights organisations to generate publicity.

Well, yes, the animal-rights organisations probably are seeking to generate publicity. This tends to be what they do when they wish to draw attention to what they consider to be a contravention of animal rights. For circuses, such as the Circo Roma Dola, a different right is being contravened as a consequence, or so it continues to say in its Facebook page statement, and this is the right of the "classic circus" to work with animals. It also says that this work is recognised as an important part of European culture by the European Parliament and that the welfare of animals is not being considered (by the animal-rights objectors, that is).

It is this last bit, about animal welfare, that AnimaNaturalis would quite naturally disagree with. In addition to concerns about security, as evidenced by instances in which animals have escaped, it flatly rejects the circuses' welfare claim. The Capdepera decision, adopted unanimously by the town hall administration, was couched in terms that AnimaNaturalis would have approved (and did); the "seeking of a society free from animal mistreatment".

AnimaNaturalis has staged protests against both the Circo Roma Dola and the Circo Williams. The Williams circus has been a regular visitor to Alcúdia, and Roma Dola is camped in the town until later this month. But it isn't only animal-rights groups which are voicing their protests. I am told that British tourists are as well, in that some have been walking out of the Roma Dola circus while others have expressed their disgust. What the tourists have objected to in particular (or at least what is alleged to have occurred during one show) was the whipping of lions and the beating of camels' legs in order to make the camels kneel down. While the lions were being hit, I understand, the announcer was calling for calm, as in "tranquilo". One assumes he wasn't addressing the lions.

British sensitivity towards animals is different to that in Spain, though the British Government is dragging its heels over what was intended to be a total ban on wild animals in circuses from the start of this July. But the circuses are also sensitive. Are they not? One comes back to that statement about animal welfare, to which one can add the defence that circuses comply with instructions from veterinary officials at the Council of Mallorca and the Guardia Civil's Seprona division. This defence was one that was made in challenging Pollensa town hall's ban.

I have no reason to believe that the circuses do mistreat their animals, but there is the animals' general welfare and their welfare while "performing". Some tourists, at least, would disagree with the welfare argument.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Concerns over Fornalutx bull run protest

The animal rights group AnimaNaturalis intends to stage a protest today in the vilage of Fornalutx against the annual "correbou" (bull run) that takes place next month. There are concerns that there will be a repeat of the clashes that occurred last year when the same group staged a protest. The mayor has asked that local people do not go to the protest in order to try and avoid incidents.

Update: The protest passed off without incident. Confined to the sports area of the village to make their demonstration, the thirty or so members of AnimaNaturalis attracted little more than close police attention.

Coughing Blood: The bullfight

AnimaNaturalis is not popular. Animal rightists, it offends traditional animal abusers, other animal-rights groups and a fair chunk of what you might think would comprise its natural support, the youth. Its modus operandi of strident agitprop and public protest, be it against the correbou, the circus or the bullfight has failed to garner significant popular support.

Last year AnimaNaturalis staged a protest in advance of the bull-run correbou in the village of Fornalutx. It was most revealing that to the fore among those hurling insults in its direction were the young.

A curious and ill-formed philosophy, if one can use such a word, exists among Mallorcan youth, especially that in more rural areas. Catalanist, Luddite in a hankering for a return to the values of the land and in rejecting mass tourism, politically right-on in being eco-conscious, it is also largely politically incorrect in respect of animal welfare.

Whereas this youth philosophy coincides, to differing degrees, with the values of certain political parties and campaigning groups like the eco-warriors of GOB, it diverges on the matter of animals and animal tradition. It is cultural fundamentalism.

AnimaNaturalis is not popular because it poses difficult questions. In attacking traditions to do with animals, it also attacks an insularity of Mallorcan society by confronting it with issues that this society is ill-equipped to deal with; ill-equipped because a not untypical Mallorcan response to individual or collective attack is to adopt a haughty and petulant righteousness. Mallorcans are argumentative, but they are not great at argument or with dealing with confrontation.

The unpopularity of AnimaNaturalis extends to other animal rights groups who prefer, they say, greater diplomacy. A reason for these other groups distancing themselves from AnimaNaturalis in Fornalutx was that they believed their approach would have brought about greater concessions from the village mayor in amending the correbou. Instead, the mayor, though he did make some changes, was pushed into a corner in siding with those who lobbed the insults at AnimaNaturalis. Or so it was claimed.

There is another way of looking at this. AnimaNaturalis is not passive. As much as fierce defence, passivity is what symbolises attitudes towards animal rights and most obviously the bullfight. It was once explained to me that there would be greater public displays of protest against the bullfight were it not for the fact that people do not wish to be seen or cannot afford to be seen to be protesting. This is cultural fundamentalism of a different order; it is one with echoes of a style of Mallorcan feudalism, the passing of which was only relatively recent and which thus remains within society's consciousness as well as within some of its current-day mores.

Though opinion polling has shown that the popularity of the bullfight has declined in Spain as a whole, the lobby for its continuance is strong, as is the social dynamic which appears to neuter protest. In an uppity and liberal part of Spain such as Catalonia, the dynamic operates in reverse, so much so that legislation was driven by popular petition to ban the bullfight. Yet a Catalanist sympathy among some of Mallorca's youth does not extend to what has been nuanced as the real reason for Catalonia's bullfight ban - anti-Spanishness.

In Mallorca the numbers that have gathered to protest at the annual bullfights in Alcúdia, Muro and Inca have been small to the point of irrelevance. In Inca AnimaNaturalis couldn't have anticipated what might actually prove to be a turning-point in both its fortunes and the whole bullfight debate in Mallorca.

One of the bulls was on the rampage. No matador was to be seen. The bull was unscathed, it was being taunted from the safety of the wooden barrier and the terraces. Until, that is, the promoter of the event took it upon himself to act as matador, thus, so it is claimed, breaking a regulation that only those listed, i.e. the matadors, can participate.

There is a video on You Tube which has gone not exactly viral but which shows what happened. I have been to the bullfight and I have witnessed similar scenes, but I had a sharp intake of breath when I saw the bull cough blood and stumble having been struck with the sword by the promoter-matador. I am neither for nor against the bullfight, for the reason that it is not my argument, but this was sickening, and the power of the video might be to persuade those whose passivity has been the norm and those of a culturally fundamental bent to recognise that perhaps AnimaNaturalis has a point.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.