Pony from Le Cirque dies at Brasilia Zoo; one camel and one elephant are in bad health condition

August 27th, 2008: One of the ten ponies that used to belong to the circus Le Cirque died yesterday after arriving at Brasilia Zoo. This sad episode is one more chapter of the recent enviornmental operation against the circus Le Cirque, that was intercepted by IBAMA two weeks ago because of clear evidence of animals’s mistreating.
 
The exact cause of the pony’s death is still unkonwn and one of the camels, named “Xuxa”, is also in very bad health condition. When Brazilian Federal Tribunal defined that all the animals of the circus should be confiscated to have a fair treatment, the owners of the circus ran away from Brasilia to Mato Grosso do Sul state.
 
The animals arrived there in very narrow and bad conserved trailers and were taken back to Brasilia under these same conditions, coming up against 35 hours of road trip. Apart from that, the circus owners took too much time to take the animals out of the trailers in Brasilia and IBAMA was only able to take the animals out and locate them at the zoo’s enclosures one day after they had arrived.
 
According to IBAMA, these situation could have been one of the causes of the pony’s death. And also, one can afirm that this is one more evidence of mistreating and lack of respect with the animals in Le Cirque. It’s worth to point out that one african elephant and one rhinoceront, who share the same trailer to be transported, are still in Mato Grosso do Sul. The elephant has one of his paws hurt and is very weak too.
 
MEASURES OF MISTREATING

How the animals were transported by the circus

1,91m long x 2,5m wide – 2 lhamas and 4 ponies
4,10m long x 2,5m wide – 2 camels
3,28m long x 2,5m wide – 2 giraffes
2,84m long x 2,5m wide – 6 ponies and one zebra

How they used to live at the circus

Chimpanzees – between 2, 25m² and 3,75m²
The minimum recommended is 60m²

Elephants – 47m²
The minimum recommended is 1,5 mil m²

Source: “Correio Braziliense” newspaper