CALDWELL – Young and old on Friday night, they came to see one thing at the circus.

"I wanted to see the animals, the elephants, the lions," said 9 year old Consuelo Rojas.

"We love animals, something good to do," said Trudy Hardt.

But it's those animals, specifically the tigers and elephants, that have Circus Vasquez under a cloud of controversy.

"They have a long history of animal mistreatment," said program director Suzanne Roy with the agency called In Defense of Animals.

IDA, an international animal protection agency, says they've been following this traveling circus for a year after they say the circus hired an elephant handler who's repeatedly been cited for inhumane handling and poor care.

"It's very sad, it's very tragic and it's only compounded by the circus' mistreatment of them," said Roy.

The organization says the circus has also been cited back in March for violating the Animal Welfare Act after a deadly tiger on tiger mauling that happened in California and they claim circus staff crams too many tigers into one cage.

The circus did not provide comment on these allegations but they did say their paperwork and permits for the Caldwell event were cleared by the USDA.

CBS 2 Eyewitness News checked with the Idaho Dept. of Agriculture and the Canyon County Fairgrounds, both of which confirmed the information.

"In all of their paperwork, the circus has to have a USDA to came out to inspect the animals and their paperwork, and everything was up to date, otherwise they would not have been able to open," said Ellen Tingstron, event coordinator with the Canyon County fairgrounds.

Tingstron also says she checks five different references for Circus Vasquez. Each one came back with a positive review.

In Defense of Animals says while that may be the case now, they're trying to make the public think twice about supporting a show they say has a proven animal cruelty track record.