The circus animals’ desertions

7 November 2008

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so….

“Lion and woman and the Lord knows what”, indeed!

Back in early August (the sixth, to be exact), the Associated Press printed this startling story from Acapulco:

Woman riding a donkey fights off lion with machete

A machete wielding lion would be quite an interesting act in itself, even without the woman and donkey act… and I guess it deserved international attention. Then, there was that bus accident on the Teotihucan Highway just outside Mexico City involving Hilda the Elephant and a bus. Typical of the English-speaking press coverage, Hilda got the attention. The PEOPLE? Lucy Cockcroftof the U.K Telegraph is rather dismissive of what happened to them: “Bus driver Tomas Lopez, 49, also died and at least four passengers were taken to hospital after the accident…”

Photo: Noticieros Televisa

Then, just this week, there was yet another circus animal – Mexican “interaction,” this time involving three tigers. A circus truck was involved in an accident (shades of the demise of the late Hilda) — the truck carrying the tigers hit a light-pole and the impact was enough to spring the doors on their cage — and the big kitties took the chance to explore Zitacuaro. Although police, rescue units and the national Environmental Protection Agency (Profepa) were called into action, the cats’ trainers were able to lure the kitties back with chicken treats (whole chickens, but whether live or dead wasn’t clear). The tigers were found in neighborhood yards, not in a junkpile in the middle of a wheatfield. That would have been sad … Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo, en tres tristes trastos en un trigal. En tres tristes trastos en un trigal, tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo.

This is the third animal runs amok story in the last four months … I’m of the theory that once is an experience, twice a coincidence and three times a perversion. Or… maybe subversion. Is there a circus animal liberation front at work?