I would like members to imagine this scenario. It is the nineteen fifties, you own a small zoo consisting of about sixty animals housed in a couple of acres. Although quite successful in a small way, money is always tight. Along comes a tea company, inviting you to supply your young chimps for television advertising on the new channel I.T.V. The fees for doing this are good, so much so that allows you later to purchase larger premises and open a full size zoo. At this time attitudes were different, circuses played literally to thousands daily with their animal shows, even at London Zoo, the famous chimp's tea party was a highly popular attraction. Meanwhile your new zoo prospers during your thirty years of involvement with chimp television work, allowing it to become a registered charity, employing many people, a lot of whom work at the zoo all their working lives,your zoo becomes famous, giving pleasure to millions of visitors over the years. The question I ask is this, if you were in this situation right back to sixty years ago, would you have accepted Brook Bond's offer of television advertising work and enjoy the financial rewards that came with it, or would you have refused as you thought the animals were being exploited?. The financial rewards, incidentally, which would have been spent on your zoo, not put into your own pocket. Perhaps it was animal exploitation, but that was sixty years ago, was it any worse than what is currently going on at a well known zoo north of the border today, "Come and see our giant pandas with you priviliged panda pass, we think the female is pregnant and will have a baby soon, sorry she's not, we made a mistake"!
