Fleadom or death: reviving the art of the flea circus.

This article discusses the revival of flea circuses, which were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries but declined due to the invention of the vacuum cleaner. Tim Cockerill, a Cambridge entomologist, plans to open the UK's first working flea circus in half a century. Flea circuses involve training real fleas to perform tricks such as walking tightropes and juggling. Cockerill is currently obtaining fleas from a hedgehog sanctuary and is working on training them for the circus. Despite concerns about the ethics of keeping fleas in captivity, Cockerill argues that insects likely do not feel pain and that he is saving them from insecticide-induced deaths. [Extracted from the article]