Animal rights activists have welcomed the announcement by Duffy’s Circus that it will not use lions and tigers in its acts again this year and is unlikely to do so in future.

John Carmody of the Animal Rights Action Network said the public were “voting with their feet in bigger numbers than ever before”, a stance shared by Animal Defenders International.

Circus owner David Duffy said that “after 25 years of having tigers and lions on our show, last Sunday was the last time for them to perform with us” adding that this marked “the end of an era for the Duffy Circus”.

He said the main reason for not continuing to use the bigs cats was that the Chipperfield family, who owned and trained the animals, were leaving the circus “for personal reasons”.

He said the act had been replaced with 10 white Alsatians and huskies, and performing parrots, adding that the new act was “going down huge”.