Circus deaths inquest

Dallas Circus proprietor, Renato Alves, and a worker at Faro Câmara could face legal action, after they buried a lion and two female tigers in a five metre deep ditch. They buried the animals in an area of câmara wasteland near the circus, at the beginning of January. It is understood that two of the animals died of old age – one was 25 years old and the other was 33 – while another younger animal, aged only six, allegedly died of a heart attack. The result of a preliminary enquiry opened by Faro Câmara concluded: “The animals were buried by members of the Dallas Circus, who also sought help in burying them from a câmara machine operator, who was working in the area at the time.” Renato Alves admits that the deaths of the animals were communicated only to the Institute of Nature Conservation, the institution responsible for the certification of wild animals. But he claims that there was never any public health danger resulting from the burial of the animals. Workers have now disinterred the animals at the bequest of the câmara and have taken the carcasses to an eastern Algarve sanitary landfill.