What are harmless ways to train animals in a circus/zoo?
It isn’t just circus folk that abuse animals in the name of training – you only have to look around the dog section to see that. Some people insist on using training methods that cause pain and fear, despite the fact that safer, more humane, more effective methods exist. The alternative is what they call “positive-reinforcement training”, which basically means rewarding the correct behaviours. Clicker training is one version of this, that using a sound as a reward marker – this gives the trainer much better timing, and makes training easier and quicker for the animal. However, as someone has already said – even if the training in circuses was 100% humane, fun and safe the animals would still suffer. Circus animals spend around 90% of their time in their travelling cages – where they have no space to move, no enrichment etc.
