The Moulin Rouge cabaret club in Paris has been forced to drop a long-running act in which terrestrial snakes are plunged into a water tank while a dancer swims around them, amid outrage and growing street protests by animal rights groups.
The historic cabaret club, which was founded in 1889 and whose audience for its dance shows is largely made up of tourist groups, had for weeks defended its use of snakes in a water tank, saying it would continue using them until 2024, the date it had decided to end all performances involving live animals.
But after animal rights groups stepped up street demonstrations and petitions, and Paris city hall warned against the use of terrestrial snakes in an underwater act, the management capitulated. On Tuesday night, the club issued a statement announcing “the permanent end of the snakes number as of today”.
Paris officials and campaigners had warned it was cruel to submerge several terrestrial snakes in water in a large tank on stage, where the audience watched the animals wriggling as a woman danced through them and handled them.
The two species used in the act, south-east Asian reticulated and Indian pythons, are protected and live on land, officials from the Paris mayor’s office had informed the venue in a letter in March.
While both species have been seen swimming in the wild, animal rights advocates said they had seen the snakes trying to keep their heads above water during the segment at the Moulin Rouge. They also said the snakes had been muzzled with tape to stop them biting, and other taping had been placed on them to stop them defecating in the tank.
The Moulin Rouge’s decision to end the use of snakes followed a heated campaign with petitions and demonstrations.
Amandine Sanvisens of the Paris Animaux Zoopolis advocacy group, which had been planning further protests outside the venue this week, called it “a historic move” that went “in the right direction for ending animal captivity in France”.
She had told Le Parisien it was “intensely stressful” for the animals to be put in the tank, adding that the snakes were transported in small metal boxes to the venue every day, a journey that took one and a half hours.
Last year the Moulin Rouge told Le Parisien: “We have never mistreated and will never mistreat animals.”
