SICKENING footage showing trainers abusing captive bear cubs, tigers, monkeys and lions in decrepit living conditions has exposed severe animal cruelty inside the Chinese circus industry.

Animal advocate group PETA Asia has released a video filmed by one of its investigators to reveal the shockingly cruel and violent training methods used by trainers on circus animals at 10 training facilities in the city of Suzhou.

The region is home to more than 300 circuses and has been described as “the circus capital of the world”, according to PETA.

The video shows trainers prodding, dragging, whipping, kicking and hitting monkeys, lions and tigers and forcing them to perform.

Bear cubs can be seen in the clip with their necks chained to a brick wall, at risk of choking or hanging as they are forced to stand on their hind legs.

“They were bullied into balancing on seesaws and walking across parallel bars,” PETA said.

“A bear, named Doudou by the investigator, was yanked by the rope around her neck and forced to walk on parallel bars. If she stopped or made a mistake, she was hit with a stick.

“Big cats paced incessantly inside cramped, barren cages.”

China Agricultural University deputy professor of veterinary medicine Jin Yipeng said the appalling treatment of the animals as seen in the video was unacceptable.

“Over the long term that causes permanent joint damage or even necrosis and paralysis. … The animals often acquire these problems in their youth, meaning they suffer for the rest of their lives”.

The investigator reported that some of the animals appeared withdrawn, “while others screamed and frantically tried to escape”.

“The cubs cried, screamed, grunted and groaned during training. They repeatedly resisted, but trainers yanked on their neck ropes, dragged them, grabbed them by the fur on their backs, yelled at them and forced them to continue,” PETA said.

“Most bears in these unnatural conditions develop abnormal behaviour, including rocking, walking in endless circles, and chewing on cage bars.”

PETA Australia Campaign Co-ordinator Claire Fryer said animals were not for entertainment.

“Wild animals do not understand or want to perform these abnormal, meaningless, and often painful tricks, but they must do them over and over again or risk being beaten — or worse,” she said.

“(We are) calling on kind people everywhere to refuse to attend animal circuses, whether at home or while travelling in China or elsewhere around the world.”

According to PETA, when the circus animals are not being trained or forced to perform, they’re “routinely restrained by chains or ropes or locked inside cages, giving them no choice but to eat, drink, sleep and relieve themselves all in the same place”.

“Every circus visited lacked adequate food, drinking water, housing, and veterinary care.”

According to PETA, cramped enclosures and abusive training techniques used on circus animals are not limited to China.

PETA Australia has called for a state and national ban on all wild-animal circus acts.

Lennon Bros Circus and Stardust are the only two circuses left in Australia “with big cats in the program”.

News.com.au does not suggest the animals in Australia-based circuses are abused by their trainers.