Circo Atlas, a hideous circus full of suffering animals There are also those who come into the Algarve to provide what some call entertainment, but which in effect cause suffering on a level that we can only imagine. One of these is Circo Atlas, a French circus, which hides abuse and about which nothing is done. There is a polar bear - a beautiful animal that has evolved in the cold of the polar region - kept inside a small cage in the boiling heat of the Portuguese sun. When Bridget and others complained bitterly, the bear was given a standard home fan to keep cool, reducing the temperature by a factor of 0. There was a horse, so malnourished that its bones were sticking through its skin. Local donkeys half-starved and half dead, are brought in as live meat for the sorrowful looking caged lion. Pathetic looking monkeys are kept in cages just big enough to turn around in and a hippopotamus is kept in a dirty enclosure not big enough for a small rodent. This whole so-called entertainment fiasco is frequented by the Portuguese and tourists alike without any knowledge of the conditions of the animals. from "Philip Gardiner's Forbidden Knowledge" Back to Photo Gallery