Today as Wild Things Live - a touring display of penguins, squirrel monkeys and exotic reptiles - visits a shopping centre in Glasgow, I think back to my younger years and brief encounters with similarly captive wild animals exploited for human entertainment...

Amongst all the many family photos my parents keep stored away in our home up on the north coast of Scotland, my favourite, and most memorable, was one of me as a little girl sitting proudly on the back of Anne the elephant. I loved animals you see, I still do, but I didn’t realise then the deep sadness that must have been so blatantly obvious in Anne’s eyes.

Nowadays the only elephant you’ll find me sitting on is ... well, none.

A few years later, my parents took my brother and I to Edinburgh Zoo. I didn’t object. I vividly remember Mercedes the polar bear and I vividly remember feeling terribly uncomfortable. Why did such a large animal live in such a small enclosure? Why was she pacing back and forth? I also remember a statue of an elephant with a plaque that said: “You won’t find a single elephant in this zoo ... except this one!” Why then I wondered was the zoo so against having elephants in its collection and not polar bears? The answer was stated further below: “Because elephants are highly intelligent animals ...” “But aren’t all animals?” I thought to myself, confused.

Fast forward to a family holiday in the States, I found myself in a bit of a dilemma, and it was called Seaworld. My Uncle, with all good intentions, thought us young ‘uns would be up for seeing Shamu the killer whale balance a ball on her flipper - I instantly felt sick at the thought. Now a young teen, I wasn’t so naive. I knew that the original Shamu had died in 1971, after six long and miserable years performing tricks for tourists (her previous home being the great expanse of the open ocean). After much debate, I was allowed to pass on the trip to Seaworld, and so did the rest of my family. Score.

But the misery for Shamu has continued. There has been no escaping the headlines branding Tilly (the most recent ‘Shamu’) a murderer after her trainer drowned during a performance. Tilly was plucked from the Icelandic ocean at only two years old and for 27 long years he has been performing in Seaworld shows, confined to nothing more than a large fish tank. 

That treasured photo of Anne no longer brings back happy memories, only complete and utter sadness fills me when I look at it now. For me, it symbolises not only Anne, the old and arthritic elephant who to this day is still part of the travelling circus, but all animals in captivity. It pains me to think that these animals will never again see their natural environment or even know what it should look, smell, taste, sound or feel like.

But not one to end on a negative note, the good news is change is happening. Last week UK Animal Welfare Minister Jim Fitzpatrick MP announced that he wants a ban on all wild animals in travelling circuses in England and Wales. He said: “... keeping wild animals to perform in travelling circuses is no longer acceptable.” Nice one Jim. And just yesterday, Charities Minister Angela Smith MP spoke out strongly against zoos, stating that it was “...inappropriate to keep wild animals in captivity in this way”. I hear you Angela.