A CIRCUS staging performances in Monmouth until Monday has hit back over an appeal from an animal rights group for the public to boycott it.

Circus Mondao, which has had shows at the Monmouthshire Showground since Tuesday, has also been criticised by the Animal Defenders International (ADI) group over the maintenance of animals’ enclosures.

The ADI said the circus was maintaining an “outdated practice which is overwhelmingly opposed by the public, local authorities and politicians alike” by using live animals including zebras, llamas, camels and reindeer.

But ringmistress Petra Jackson, who has been with the circus for 22 years, said: “They just make it sound so bad. Badly treated animals do not come to you. If you are bad to an animal, they stay away from you. We have got some older animals. If you neglect them they don’t live to an old age.

“We live and watch them and we know all their little characteristics. We are about them all day and every day – it’s not like people who might have a horse down in a field.”

Among their oldest animals, they look after 30-year-old Zebedee the zebra, who was roaming free around the big top when the Argus visited the showground yesterday afternoon.

The ringmistress said their shows had been busy and that people in them had been sympathetic to animals performing: “When you’re in farming communities people understand that animals need a purpose in life. To see the little kids’ faces light up when a zebra comes into the ring is fantastic.”

She added she thought ADI and similar ones which have protested at their shows in the past would prefer animals to never live rather than be used in a circus.

And she said animal rights groups had previously attacked the circus’ treatment of their camels - but she said any problems they highlighted were caused by the animals moulting.

In total the circus, which has a base in Lincolnshire, looks after: Zebedee the zebra, four Shetland ponies, a donkey, two mules, seven horses, two reindeer, five llamas, four pygmy goats, two camels, two chickens, six ducks and pigeons.

By the time Circus Mondao leaves Monmouth, the animals will have taken part in two shows a day for six days. On their final day there, on Easter Monday, they will perform once. They perform with a 30-strong group of people, which is made up of members from Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Brazil, Scotland and England.

The circus arrived in the town after a stint in Swadlincote in Derbyshire and will move onto Sully.

But the president of Animal Defenders International Jan Creamer said: “Wild animals do not belong in the circus and a national ban prohibiting their use has been promised. Until the law is passed we urge local people not to support circus suffering and avoid Circus Mondao.”