THREE photographs in the national press of a baby elephant trying to get into a child’s paddling pool, with his sad mother looking on at a safari park, encapsulates all that is wrong for captive zoo wildlife – and circuses are even worse.

All this in a barren field, whereas in the wild, elephants would travel up to 60 miles a day, through desert and forest, stopping at rivers to drink and bathe.

All zoos and safari parks show animals deprived of a natural life to a great extent. And what happens to their offspring and the third generation onwards, perhaps confined to tethering or caging?

Please don’t go to zoos or safari parks, at home or away.

SHEILA CLAYTON, Southampton United Animal Charities, Southampton.