(End of petition: 30 November 2007)

To Prime Minister of Italy

Dear sir,
As more people become aware of the cruelty involved in forcing animals to perform, circuses that use animals are finding fewer places to set up their big tops. The use of animals in entertainment has already been restricted or banned in several U.S. localities—such as South Carolina and Orange County and Pasadena, California—as well as in cities around the world, like New Delhi, Belfast, and Rio de Janeiro.
In Italy, circuses risks to disappear: the public go away, collection decrease, the popularity of the shows with animals is in continuous decline.
Evidence of this is the increasing of the public's estrangement, mainly children, that prefer alternate entertainments, showing that above all they have a greater compassion for animals. If it were not for State subsidies many  of these circuses already would have already closed because of this lack of emotional and financial support by the public.
It is becoming a widely known fact that these animals used in the entertainment industry, such as the circus; are often wild-caught and viciously trained by various cruel methods only to perform acts for human entertainment. Circus training methods include beating animals with clubs and other objects and depriving them of food and water. Trainers resort to these brutal methods to maintain a position of dominance. Furthermore, watching animals perform unnatural tricks outside their natural habitats does not teach people anything about the animals. By displaying animals in this degrading manner, circuses present animals only as creatures whose purpose is to amuse us.
Animals are forced to do unnatural tricks which they do out of fear because they are beaten until they learn it.
Circuses would quickly lose their appeal if more people knew about the cruel methods used to train the animals; the cramped confinement, unacceptable travel conditions, and poor treatment that they endure; and what happens to them when they “retire.”
Compassionate citizens shun circuses which continue to subject unwilling animals to abusive training, constant confinement and gruelling transport
Circuses are entertainment, not education. Watching animals perform unnatural tricks only teaches our children that it is acceptable to exploit animals; it does not teach respect for animals, nor does it help animals in the wild. Animal-free circuses and entertainment, such as Cole Brothers Circus and Cirque du Soleil, are growing as the use of animals becomes recognized as archaic, unsafe and inhumane.
We, the signors of said petition request that  you, no longer supports animal acts, and only support non-animal acts; we intend to see the days of animal acts end too, for the sake of human and animal safety.
We, the undersigned, want a ban on using animals as entertainment in all circuses.
Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.
Regards,

This petition has been signed by 3166 people