Is this "circus," or is this something else?

An employee of a mobile zoo, in the photo above, throws meat to a lion and an Amur tiger on April 3, 2009. The meat was donated by locals in the town of Sosnovoborsk, northeast of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Some 30 animals from a mobile zoo were left in dire conditions, going without food and care for days, after the Russian migration service deported the zoo’s Armenian owners from the country because of their expired visas, local media reported. The owners had taken their zoo, which included an Amur tiger, a lion, and a lynx, on tours around Russia and intended to spend the winter in the small Siberian town.


A young Asiatic brown bear, in the photo below, squeezes its head under the bars of its four square meter mobile enclosure in the town of Sosnovoborsk, Russia on April 3, 2009. The bear is among some 30 animals left without food and care for days, after the Russian migration service deported the zoo’s Armenian owners from the country because of their expired visas.


There are good doctor's and bad doctor's, and good lawyer's and bad lawyer's, good dog breeder's and bad dog breeder's, good zoo's and bad zoo's. There is good as well as bad, in every profession/industry in the world, and that includes exotic animal training, as well as the circus in general. Why our industry did not distinguish the different circus's as well as the people's participating in the craft of animal training, I will never know. Some zoological institutions are attempting to distance themselves from the stereotype of "zoo," by changing their name to something like Audubon Nature Institute, etc. One way or the other, when we go to Indian Joe's Reptile Garden or the Bronx, we know we are going to two very, very different things. The rodeo industry has come up with the PBR, the NFR, etc. so folks know they won't just be seeing a "rodeo", like what is at the county fair, or at the Broken Wheel Ranch on the weekend. When you think United States Team Roping Championships(USTRC) you know it isn't a few neighbors getting together for a Sunday afternoon roping jackpot. When you hear name's like Larry Mahan, Tuff Hedeman, Ty Murray, Don Gay, Roy Cooper, Fred Whitfield, Jim Sharp, Alvin Nelson, etc. etc. you know they are more then just "rodeo guy's." They are World Champions many times over, won because they were the best at what they did, not because they participated in a phony festival.

No, we crippled our industry severly by not having a "grade" system, and a distiction that people would know and see instantly. Is it too late, with what's left anymore, to seperate the wheat from the chaff?