Captive Animals Protection Society
Encyclopedia
The Captive Animals' Protection Society is a UK charity campaigning to end the use of animals in entertainment, including circuses, zoos, the exotic pet trade and the audio-visual industry.

History

Founded in 1957 by retired school teacher Irene Heaton at a time when circuses were at their peak and all had animals.

In 1965, CAPS promoted a bill to the House of Lords, sponsored by Lord Somers (who was then president of CAPS) to prohibit the use of performing animals. Despite great support it was defeated by just 14 votes.

The 1970s saw CAPS organising demonstrations outside circuses. Pressure increased on animal circuses in the 1980s, gaining the support of the National Council of Women and local authorities started to prohibit circuses from using council land.

In the mid-1980s CAPS started one of its most important campaigns, to stop animal acts at the prestigious Blackpool Tower Circus, where for six months of every year the animals were confined in the cellars of the tower. Three years later, it was announced that animal acts would stop at the circus once the contract expired in 1990. When the circus owner moved to the adjoining Pleasure Beach there were weekly demonstrations. Backed by vets and other experts, the campaign worked and in 1997 Blackpool Pleasure Beach announced there would be no more animal circuses on its land.

Three of the charity's former directors have been given awards for their work by the RSPCA.

CAPS became a registered charity in 2008.

Campaigns

CAPS has carried out undercover investigations and researches the use of animals in entertainment. In 2004 it commissioned the largest and most in-depth investigation ever made into the public aquarium industry, revealing most animals to have been taken from the wild and disputing conservation claims by the industry.

Campaigning against the use of animals in circuses has remained the core focus, supporting protests against travelling circuses around the UK.

Patrons

The charity's patrons include politicians, academics and people from the world of arts:

Professor Marc Bekoff
Marc Bekoff
Marc Bekoff is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He currently lives in Colorado and lectures internationally on issues of animal behavior, cognitive ethology , and behavioral ecology.Like Jane Goodall, Marc Bekoff is an ethologist, which...

, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado

Mike Hancock, Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament

Britta Jaschinski, world-renowned photographer

Jay Kay, Grammy Award-winning lead singer of Jamiroquai
Jamiroquai
Jamiroquai is a British jazz funk and acid jazz band formed in 1992. Jamiroquai were initially the most prominent component in the early-1990s London-based acid jazz movement, alongside groups such as Incognito, the James Taylor Quartet, and the Brand New Heavies. Other Acid Jazz artists such as...



Professor Randy Malamud, professor of English at Georgia State University

Dr Edgar Mann, ex-GP and member of the ancient Isle of Man Parliament

Fiona Oakes, elite marathon runner

Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...

, art critic and columnist

Angela Evans Smith
Angela Evans Smith
Angela Evans Smith, Baroness Smith of Basildon is a British Labour Co-operative politician who was the Member of Parliament for Basildon from 1997 till she was defeated in 2010...

, Labour Member of Parliament

Lady Stratford, wife of late Tony Banks, Baron Stratford
Tony Banks, Baron Stratford
Anthony Louis Banks, Baron Stratford was a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 2005, before being made a Member of the House of Lords. In government, he served for two years as Minister for Sport...



Peter Tatchell
Peter Tatchell
Peter Gary Tatchell is an Australian-born British political campaigner best known for his work with LGBT social movements...

, human rights campaigner
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