A SHOW involving the UK's last circus big cat show has been cancelled after council chiefs refused to give it the go-ahead.
Three tigers and two lions, which have spent the winter on a croft in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, were set to perform a show on a former air base on Monday.
The event has been at the centre of a huge row between the country's only lion tamer and animal rights activists who claim the show is a "distasteful, outdated performance".
Just days before 'An evening with lions and tigers' was set to go ahead at Crimond Airfield in Aberdeenshire, the council refused to grant the entertainment licence.
Now lion tamer Thomas Chipperfield has said they will "push" to get the animals on show in Scotland.
"We are pursuing the possibility of getting the decision changed or will re apply for the licence," said Mr Chipperfield.
"We will push to show in the area. It's very disappointing because people in the area have been so fantastic to us."
Tickets for the show were due to cost £6 for adults and £4 for children.
In the 1950s, Thomas Chipperfield's family owned the biggest circus in Europe with a herd of 16 elephants and more than 200 other animals from polar bears to chimps and giraffes.
Now he has the only circus big cats in the UK and is coming under increasing pressure from animal rights groups to put them into sanctuaries.
"We haven't been banned. It was simple time scale, red tape issues," said event co-organiser Anthony Beckwith.
"We're looking at the application process again. We definitely want to do something up here."
A spokeswoman for Aberdeenshire Council confirmed the public entertainment licence was "not granted" on Friday by the licensing board.
The council's decision was welcomed by animal rights activists.
John Robins, of Animal Concern, said: "It's nice to get good news for a change.
"Now the Scottish Government must outlaw the use of animals in circuses and consign this type of animal exploitation to the history books where it belongs."
The circus claimed on its posters that the event was supported by children's charity Cash For Kids.
The charity at first claimed it had not given its approval and asked for its name to be withdrawn.
Cash For Kids has subsequently claimed it withdrew from the event under pressure from animal rights groups.
Animal Defenders International (ADI) secretly filmed the big cats in cages on the Aberdeenshire croft over the winter, saying they were living a "pitiful existence".
A spokesman for Aberdeenshire Council said at that time that a vet and two officers had visited Mr Chipperfield's premises and were satisfied with the wellbeing and security of the animals.
Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead has previously said the Scottish Government will "look carefully" at changing the law to ban circuses from using wild animals.
Mr Lochhead made the announcement at Holyrood in November after Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, raised concerns about the Aberdeenshire big cats' welfare.
A consultation on the use of wild animals in travelling circuses closed last year and some 2,000 responses were submitted.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article