ANIMAL rights activists spent a day picketing outside Flamingo Land to protest about the theme park's zoo.

Demonstrators from the Society for the Total Abolition of Vivisection and Exploitation (STAVE), based themselves outside the main entrance with banners and placards as visitors spent Bank Holiday Monday at the attraction.

Sue Stone, from the Scarborough-based group, said: "We are here to protest at animals being kept for entertainment. We have had lots of cars tooting to show their support, and a lot of people have told us they are not here for the zoo, they are only here for the theme park.

"But it's the theme park that is sustaining the zoo."

Sue added: "As long as people are coming here for the theme park, it is supporting the zoo and they are making money out of animals' misery."

Fellow demonstrator Louise Stevenson said: "We want visitors to go and have a look at the animals and see what conditions they are being kept in.

"People can make up their own minds, and then make complaints based on their own decision.

"The environment they are in at the zoo is so far removed from their natural one that it is no substitute."

No one from Flamingo Land was available for comment.

Updated: 11:38 Tuesday, April 02, 2002