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Several countries - among them Austria, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, India, Israel and Sweden - ban or severely restrict the use of wild animals in circuses. In Brazil, a movement to ban wild animals from circuses started after hungry lions managed to grab and devour a small boy.

Animal abuse is rampant in the U.S., right under everyone's eyes, for the entertainment of the public. The brutal confinement and pain of training methods of wild animals in the circus, the aquatic and theatrical shows, leads to retaliation by the animals. Eventually they find the right time to strike out, and they will.

States should pass laws making it illegal to own or trade wild animals; the phony 'educational' permits that many private owners have used to skirt those laws should be eliminated.

Attempts to defend amusement parks and circuses on the grounds that they 'educate' people about animals should not be taken seriously. Such enterprises are part of the commercial entertainment industry. The most important lesson they teach impressionable young minds is that it is acceptable to keep animals in captivity for human amusement.

When I was a child, going to a circus with wild animal acts was a rite of passage. These days, it's an act of complicit cruelty.

What I want is the general betterment of pets. No-kill is a part of that. I'd like to see that policy enacted at all SPCA-type organizations around the country.

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.

In most countries, it is possible to visit zoos and see bored animals pacing back and forth in cages, with nothing to do but wait for the next meal. Circuses are even worse places for animals. Their living conditions are deplorable, especially in travelling circuses where cages have to be small so that they can go on the road.

I think that now that we are seeing multimedia types of productions with videos and pictures and human beings performing the acts that animals used to perform, such as in Cirque du Soleil and other traveling troops, there is no need to parade animals around anymore in cages for personal gratification.

I am personally not against keeping animals at zoos, as they serve a huge educational purpose, but treating them well and with respect seems the least we could do, and with 'we' I mean not just zoo staff, but most certainly also the public.