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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.

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'm impressed with how professional they are and what they can get an animal to do. I mean, dogs and cats - that's one thing. But when you get into the larger animals, that's a different thing all together.

And sometimes I actually start to think human life is just as cheap to corporate America as animal life, so long as there are big profits to be made.

For actors in Hollywood, it's very straightforward. We're well-paid animals in a zoo.

When people are thinking, we are quite inventive animals.

Animals play a big part in my life, on tour or at home.

People are beginning to realize that it's important that we see animals in a natural state - but through film, through video, through documentaries, at wildlife preserves, and through other humanely protected ways, which don't involve... performing for us.