Animal rights campaigners are urging the public to boycott a circus being staged in Perth.
Bobby Roberts Super Circus, which was at the centre of a scandal involving the mistreatment of an elderly Asian elephant, still has a number of horses in its show.
The circus say they “completely reject” any suggestion the horses come to any harm as a result of their involvement and hope the public will make up their own minds on the issue.
“Making animals travel long distances, suffer confinement and often intensive training methods, and perform meaningless tricks for entertainment is a thing of the past,” said Libby Anderson, policy director at OneKind.
“The majority of circuses in the UK no longer use animals in their performances. We would like the compassionate people of Perth and Kinross to make it clear that they will not tolerate the exploitation of animals we urge them to visit only human circuses.”
As part of its summer tour of Scotland the circus is at McDiarmid Park until Sunday.
A spokesman said that they condemned the ill-treatment of the elephant by an employee and the animal, which had been owned by the family for over 50 years, had been re-homed to Longleat, where she was settling in.
On the horses, he said they were very careful about their welfare. He said that, following the logic of the welfare groups, police horses and dogs should not be allowed to work.
The horses involved in the show eight in total are used in two groups to cover two shows each night and appear for nine minutes per evening.
“We do not believe horses are wild animals-they are domesticated,” said the spokesman.
The Captive Animals’ Protection Society’s director Liz Tyson said, “With the Scottish Parliament beginning to discuss whether or not the keeping of wild animals in circuses should be formally banned, we sincerely hope that the use of wild animals in circuses will soon be a thing of the past in Scotland.
“In the meantime, we encourage people to vote with their feet and to avoid any circus that continues to use animals in their performances and, instead, visit one of the fantastic shows with an all-human cast,” she added.