Animal circus will not return
21st March 2007
 WILD animals performing in the Great British
Circus will not return to Chingford Plain this year.
The travelling show - which boasts the largest collection
of wild animals currently touring Britain - has visited Epping
Forest every autumn for the last five years, attracting determined
animal-rights campaigners and a declining audience.
But The City of London's Epping Forest and commons committee
decided to block the show last week by giving an exclusive
licence to the all-human Billy Smarts Circus to perform at
Chingford Plain and Wanstead Flats from 2008, and inviting
the equestrian theatre show The Spirit of the Horse to visit
this autumn
  
Cromer zoo's new residents
14th March 2007
The tree-speckled farmland on the edge
of Cromer is currently home to woodpeckers, blue tits, kestrels
and frogs.
But soon they will be joined by pumas, snakes, piranha fish and flamingos as
the town's latest tourist attraction takes shape.
Work is well under way creating the new Cromer Zoo, which should open in late
May or early June nearly 24 years after the last one shut.
Wire enclosures to house big cats, a timber-clad building which will house crocodiles,
and café which will overlook a lake and flock of flamingos are emerging
from the rolling countryside.
Zoo director Jim Irwin-Davis said the collection of animals was linked to South
America, but 99pc of them were coming from other zoos in Britain and Europe
Duck farm bid suffers blow
6th March 2007
CAMPAIGNERS fighting to stop a duck rearing
operation for up to 12,000 birds have welcomed news that councillors
are being advised to reject the plans.
Mid Suffolk District Council is considering whether to grant planning permission
for the complex in Mendlesham Green, near Stowmarket.
Villagers who fear their quality of life will be harmed have been putting billboards
around the community.
Residents fear an increase in traffic, that the duck rearing unit will become
a blot on the landscape and that their homes will be devalued.
Campaigner and Mendlesham Green villager Irene Barker said: “When we heard
there was a move to refuse this we were absolutely delighted
High Court upholds ban on woman keeping pets
5th March 2007
 An “animal lover” who was involved
in keeping a menagerie of more than 300 pets in “chaotic” conditions,
has lost her fight to keep six pet dogs.
Elizabeth King took her battle to the High Court in London today but top judges
dismissed her appeal, saying the court which sentenced her had a duty to protect
animals.
The case centred on a farm at Trimingham in north Norfolk, where 352 animals,
including dogs, cats, guinea pigs and rabbits were found in conditions which
an RSPCA inspector said were some of the worst he had ever seen. Dogs had rotten
teeth, kittens had ulcerated eyes, some animals were sleeping in their own excreta,
and there was “chaos” Cromer magistrates heard last year when King,
55, appeared with Beryl Barker, then aged 72.
Prosecutors said it was the number of animals which caused the problem and accepted
there was no any “wanton, deliberate or malicious cruelty”. The court
also heard the two women would go without food themselves to care for the animals.
Barker was given a three-year conditional discharge and banned from keeping animals
for life.
King, who is now landlady of the Black Boys pub at Aldborough, was sentenced
to 160 hours community service, but today failed to get her 15-year ban overturned
Businessman stole wild bird eggs
1st March 2007
A wealthy businessman stole birds' eggs
from the north Norfolk coast, so he could hatch them out
to stock his own private nature reserve.
Paul Zwetsloot, 43, was arrested last June after he was seen acting suspiciously
near plovers' nests on a fenced-off area of Brancaster beach.
When police searched his house at Great Staploe, in the Bedfordshire countryside,
they found sophisticated incubation equipment and 60 adult wading birds living
around a fenced-off pond in the back garden,
Yesterday at King's Lynn magistrates Zwetsloot admitted four charges of taking
the eggs of ringed plover, common sandpiper, oystercatcher and snipe contrary
to the Wildlife and Countryside Act, and one charge contrary to the Game Act
of taking the eggs of red grouse.
He was fined £2,500 and ordered to pay costs of £1,875
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