Could I ask your readers via the letters page to boycott the Great British Circus which is currently in situ in Chelmsford.

As a supporter of Animal Defenders International I support their Stop Circus Suffering campaign which wishes to end the inclusion of animals in circuses.

Due to the nature of travelling circuses, where they move each week and the animals' accommodation must fit on the back of a transporter, the facilities the animals need simply cannot be provided.

Thus for most of the year these animals live in temporary accommodation caged in the backs of trucks, tied in stalls and chained.

Animals often have to endure long hours of travelling, and remain shut inside the transporters until the circus is set up again.

Living in such impoverished and unnatural conditions purely for the so-called entertainment of humans is unnecessary in this day and age.

In the last 100 years human understanding of the planet we live on and the animals with whom we share our world has grown enormously.

We have made great strides in technology, medicine and learning.

Yet how can we consider ourselves civilised while we continue to allow the suffering and abuse of animals simply for entertainment?

Kate Curtis

Braintree

By email