Oh dear! Zippo's Circus have announced their tour dates for 2010 and it appear that they have scheduled stops all over Greater London!


We know our friends at London Animal Rights will be protests at most of the London Events, but ACATA have contacted the council to inform them we will be protesting at the Sidcup leg of the tour.


Zippos Circus have been exposed several times by Animal Defenders International (ADI) for failing to comply with even some of the basic needs of the animals. They took hours to load up their animals on a trip to Bexleyheath in April 2006 and left them without food or water. ADI also reported that when the scandal involving the Chipperfield's cruel training camp for animals in the 1990s became public knowledge and we found out that they had been beating elephants with bull hooks and kicking a baby chimpanzee called Trudy across her cell, it was David Hibling, the Artistic Director for Zippo's, who stood up in court and said that he saw "nothing wrong" with the treatment of the animals under Mary Chipperfield's care.


When the Southern Animal Rights Coalition (SARC) ran a campaign against Zippo's in September 2009, Zippo's were so concerned with getting activists wet in the rain that they sent one of their workers up on the forks of a forklift truck to take down a tent the activists were stood under and when he slipped, he broke several bones and was hospitalized. Still, at least the activists were wet!?


On one of the SARC protests, activists were told by a member of the audience that "When the man raised his hand the budgies flinched. Every time." and that "The way the young girl brandished the whip was obviously scary to the horses".


So ACATA encourages any one who can get to our protest to join us at 6.00PM on Thursday May 6th in order to name and shame these animal abusers and let them know that Sidcup in no place for animal abuse.