Animals may no longer be used for entertainment at the Tilburg fair. This was decided by the Tilburg city council on Monday evening. The Party for the Animals had submitted a motion with six other parties to ban animals from the fair. The warm summers in particular are increasingly causing heat stress, which is bad for animal welfare.
The ban on animals at the fair means that people are no longer allowed to ride a pony, a tradition many children in Tilburg grew up with. The city of mice is also no longer allowed to be at the fair. Muizenstad left the Tilburg fair in 2019 because of a video on YouTube. In it, animal activists asked questions about whether the mice are doing well during the extremely hot summer. So they can’t come back now.
Contract until 2024
The LST, Forum for Democracy, 50plus, VVD and CDA are against the ban on animals at the fair. According to LST, the ponies are well cared for at the fair and ‘it shouldn’t get any crazier’ if that is no longer allowed. 50plus ended the discussion with the hope that ‘The caterpillar’ may remain at the fair.
VVD alderman Maarten van Asten does not agree with the motion, but is carrying it out because of the council majority. He does think that the municipality of Tilburg should adhere to the contracts that are still running with pony fair operators. These will run until 2024. He also notes that the operator who keeps ponies at the fair has already left them at home during a number of warm summers.
Animal welfare research
The city council will also investigate whether animal welfare can be improved at all Tilburg events. This will be included in the new event policy. The Party for the Animals would like to see that no animals are used at all during events in Tilburg. They then think of Sinterklaas’ horse and the sheep in the nativity scene. The city council does not want to go that far, but they will conduct research to see how animal welfare can be improved.
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