I’m not a fan of animals in the circus.

I went to see the Boswell Wilkie Circus as a child and was horrified by the chained elephants they had on display there.

It’s cruel and unnatural to force wild animals to perform for people, then confine them to barely tolerable living spaces.

In Russia, a bear named Yashka had clearly had enough of such treatment and decided to end things with his handler.

Here’s The Independent:

Families scrambled to gather their children and belongings to flee the Anshlag Tent Circus which had no barriers between the audience and stage for the show in the Karelia region of north west Russia.

As part of the “Bow-legged and the Wheelbarrow” section of the show, trainer Ruslan Solodyuk ordered the giant brown bear called Yashka to push a wheelbarrow whilst standing on two feet.

But when he grabbed a chain around the 600lb creature’s neck, the bear started to maul him.

Galina Gurieva filmed the incident:

Sorry, I’m with the bear on this one. Good for you, Yashka.

Ruslan Solodyuk survived the attack and said that the bear wasn’t feeling well during the performance.

He told the Russian site Daily Storm that the bear had never been violent before and that its aggression was a result of old age and joint pains, which get worse in the autumn.

I think we can all agree that the poor bear shouldn’t have been performing in the first place.

Police are investigating. Let’s just hope Yashka makes it out of all this unscathed.

[source:independent]