The X Factor judge Louis Walsh has called for a ban on wild animal circuses, writing a letter to Michael Creed, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, on behalf of PETA and Animal Rights Action Network (ARAN).

Walsh wrote that unlike the acts he's worked with in his career, the animals perform tricks unwillingly, saying 'They do so because if they don't, they will be whipped, beaten with a steel-tipped bullhook or shocked with an electric prod'. Michael Sheen, Martin Freeman and Robert Carlyle have also spoken out against wild animal circus acts.