Cruelty to Circus Animals

[Stephanie Durecko]

It is long overdue that Ringling Bros. Circus be responsible for the mistreatment of circus animals. As children we never really saw the cruelty but as responsible adults it time to take a stand against this treatment of these beautiful animals.

[Stephanie Durecko]

How long were you with the circus??? Are you going to join the federal court cases and be a witness to the cruelty you saw?
Were you part of the animal show? I am really curious. If you had seen the animals being kept horribly, did you see the USDA do something about it? Did you report it? Just wondering what steps you took to help these animals

[marion]

I AM WORKING TO BE INVOLVED..HAVE LEFT WORD ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE I CAN..I WOULD LOVE TO TESTIFY AGAINST THE BASTIGES...

I RECOGINSE THE MEN IN THE VIDEO ON MY PAGE, AND EVEN THINK I SEE MY ELEPHANT..BETTY..

I WAS AN AERIALIST, AND TRICK ELEPHANT RIDER..
I JOINED BECAUSE I WANTED TO BE AROUND WILD ANIMALS..HAD NO IDEA WHAT REALLY WENT ON..I WAS VERY ATHELETIC..HAD NO PROBLEM GETTING IN AS A
'SHOWGIRL'
THEN THEY HAD AN OPENING FOR ELEPHANT RIDING..NONE OF THE FANCY GIRLS WANTED TO DO IT AS IT WAS DIRTY AND REALLY EXHAUSTING..

THEY SAID I WAS THE BEST THEY HAD EVER SEEN..

ONE DAY THEY WERE BRINGING MY BETTY FOR ME TO RIDE..AND ONE OF THE ROUSTABOUTS JABBED HER TO IMPRESS ME! I SCREAMED AT HIM..EVER YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN..
THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO PERFORMERS.. AND LIVE SEPERATELY..

OMG..PLEASE VISIT MY PAGE..AND SEE THE VIDEO..

THEY HAVE TO LIVE IT EVERYDAY, WHILE SO MANY PEOPLE GO TO BE 'ENTERTAINED.'.

IF THEY ONLY KNEW....WE HAVE TO LET THEM KNOW!

SORRY I DIDNT SEE YOUR POST TILL TODAY..I DONT KNOW WHY..I AM HERE EVERYDAY.JUST MISSED IT..

[Stephanie Durecko]

http://www.api4animals.org/actionalerts.php?p=1629&more=1

Action Alert:
Be a Voice for Animals in Circuses in Your Community
Published 05/01/08

Ever wish there was something more you could do to make a difference for animals in the circus and help end the suffering they are forced to endure? How about working with us to enact protective legislation in your city?

By attending a city or county council meeting in your area, you can pave the way toward a local ordinance prohibiting the use of animals in the circus, and many of the industry’s most abusive training tools and methods.

As many of you well know, the current laws that are supposed to protect circus animals are woefully inadequate, and often poorly enforced. Born Free USA united with Animal Protection Institute has been working to change this for more than 10 years now.

During that time we have counted on the help you have given us, educating the public as well as local and state lawmakers in your area — that using animals in circuses is an unnecessary and inhumane practice and is harmful to the individual animals, and to the people who come in contact with them.

We hope we can count on you again now. This is a great opportunity to help your city — which could soon join the many others throughout the U.S. that have already enacted ordinances protecting animals in circuses.

The animals — currently languishing in cramped travel carriers, temporary wire pens, or at the end of short metal chains — need you. We need you!

And with our help, it’s even easier than it may sound to make a profound difference.

How You Can Help
Attend and speak out at a city or county council meeting in your community. At every city council meeting or county Board of Supervisors meeting there is a public comment period — typically at the end of each meeting.


During that time, you can stand up and educate the lawmakers about how animals in circuses are treated. Typically, you’ll have between two to three minutes where you can discuss the need for your city or county to adopt an ordinance to protect these animals.

This is a perfect opportunity to discuss:

The long travel that the animals endure
The cruel training techniques that are used on the animals. And with respect to the elephants, the use of bullhooks and chains.
The track record that each circus that performs in your area has under the Animal Welfare Act
A list of any incidents that the circus may have experienced
And to call for a ban on the use of wild and exotic animals in traveling shows and circuses in your city or county.
For additional information on how animals are treated, click here.

Keep attending these meeting regularly — and speak out each time during the public comment period. Let your local lawmakers know that this is an issue that you care greatly about and that you want something to be done to protect the animals.
Please get in touch with us and we would be happy to give you advice on how to move forward. Also, please let us know if/when you take action at a city/county council meeting and any response you get from your lawmakers. Send your inquiries/information to [e-mail].

We can only change the law if we reach out to lawmakers and educate them about the mistreatment that animals in circuses endure on a daily basis.

Thank you for all you do for animals!



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To see a list of cities across the U.S. and Canada that have already enacted restrictions regarding circus animals, click here.

You can read all about Born Free USA united with API’s circus campaign here.

[Ruth Henriquez Lyon]

Hi,

I just signed up this morning, because I found your group while looking for a way to respond to this pro-circus opinion piece in our local (Duluth, MN) paper: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=66321&se....

If this link does not work, you should be able to go to the paper's main link, and it will be listed under "Opinion" and entitled "Local view: Behind the scenes, circus animals are treated well"
Duluth News Tribune
Published Monday, May 12, 2008

I would like to invite knowledgable people to respond to this piece, preferably in measured tones. I know that there have been many documented abuses regarding circus animals, but I'm not educated enough to know the exact details. I think this column has a weak argument, since he makes sweeping statements about all circuses, and also because when speaking about what constitutes "good care" he does not take into consideration the special requirements of non-human animals.

If you know of any other ways I can get a response to this column, please reply.

Thanks,
Ruth Henriquez-Lyon

[Vladimir]

Ruth, the simplest response is, the author of this piece makes sweeping statements regarding the treatment of animal performes in cicuses with an overgeneralized, ignorant analysis: based on his personal experience and the view he has taken of the animals at ONE convention center he wishes animal welfare advocates to have visited. This argument is facetious and insulting, since circus management would naturally take care to ensure that no mistreatment of the animal performers is visible to the public, and that steps would be deliberately taken to give the impression that the animals are well cared for. The facts are that, given the nature of a traveling circus, and the lack of a permanent facility, the animals MUST be chained and/or confined every minute they are not "on stage," and MUST endure hardships of almost continuous confined travel from venue to venue. To posture any other interpretation is simply false: it would not be possible, for these animal performers to enjoy even a moment of comfort or any semblance of thier natural emotions or instincts in a performance venue. Chained in the basement (out of view) under Madison Square Garden in New York City, is it possible, to be treating an elephant decently, or allowing it to enact any instinctual behavior. This is counter-intuitive, blatantly misrepresented, and you should have no hesitation to say so.

When the author opines that the animal performers are not mis-treated, and wishes everyone could have come to the convention center he mentions to see so, he is making an utterly absurd argument. Elephants and wild animals do not peform tricks in the wild, and the unnatural behaviors they enact (for public amusement) are done to avoid punishment. The animal performers are "taught" tricks through negative reinforcement by means of painful punishment. They perform these "tricks" for the public because they are afraid of further abuse during the show. The "training" is done out of sight of the public, and just the sight of the bullhook (ankus) is enough to get a previously abused elephant to "perform." You should rightfully ask the question: if the bullhook is just a "guiding tool," THEN WHAT IS THE HOOK FOR?

Ruth, if you beat a child mercilessly with a wooden spoon, when company visited, you would need only to place that spoon on the table, in view of the child, and the child would "behave" as you instructed, right "on cue," would he not? For your visitors, the child would appear an angel, so well behaved... THAT IS HOW CIRCUS TRAINING WORKS.

Given the nature of the environment and the natural instincts of the animal performers, you should argue that it is simply not logical to accept argument that a circus treats them well. It is not logical because the argument is profit driven and deliberately false.

For encouragement, Please see:
http://aspcacommunity.ning.com/group/savethecircusanimals/forum/top...

[Vladimir]

Interesting post. And the last line of your post in particular, is just devastating and really resonates and is troubling. Are they the words of a philosopher we know?

[Stephanie Durecko]

Thursday, May 22, 2008
Animal Protection Groups Ask Federal Court to Halt Ringling Bros.’ Cruel Chaining and Confinement of Endangered Asian Elephants


(Washington, D.C.) May 21, 2008 — Today, a coalition of animal protection organizations and a former Ringling Bros. employee asked a federal district court in Washington D.C. to immediately order a halt to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (Ringling Bros.)’s cruel practice of shackling and confining endangered Asian elephants for days on end in a manner that prevents them from walking or even turning around in place.

Newly obtained evidence based on the circus’s own documents reveals that Ringling Bros. keeps elephants virtually immobilized in chains for the majority of their lives. Internal records of the circus’s train travels show that the elephants are chained while confined in boxcars for an average of more than 26 hours at a time, and sometimes for as much as 60–100 hours without a break as the circus moves across the country.

"The evidence is simply shocking,” says Lisa Weisberg, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). “The public should be outraged at the amount of time these animals are forced to be shackled and confined, and Ringling Bros. should be ashamed at hiding this cruelty from the public eye.”

“We hope that the Court will order Ringling Bros. to immediately unchain these incredibly intelligent and, social animals and spare them from suffering a lifetime of misery,” says Tracy Silverman, General Counsel for Animal Welfare Institute. “No animal should be chained for days at a time, week after week, month after month and year after year.”

The request for an immediate halt to prolonged chaining and confinement of elephants is part of a groundbreaking lawsuit by the ASPCA, the Animal Welfare Institute, The Fund for Animals, Born Free USA united with Animal Protection Institute (Born Free USA), and former Ringling Bros. employee Tom Rider against Ringling Bros. Circus. The suit alleges that the circus is violating the Endangered Species Act by abusively training and disciplining elephants with sharp implements such as bullhooks, and by intensively confining and chaining the animals for prolonged periods of time.

“Shackling elephants for days on end without the ability to walk or even turn around is inherently cruel,” said Michael Markarian, President of The Fund for Animals. “Endangered species deserve something better than a lifetime of suffering.”

Although Ringling Bros. has denied that the elephants spend most of their lives in chains, former circus employees and other witnesses have given sworn testimony to the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the elephants are kept tightly chained by one front and hind leg — unable to move freely or even turn around — for hours on end.

“The overwhelming evidence we have obtained confirms what former Ringling Bros. employees have said for years about the unimaginable cruelty that goes on under — and behind — the Big Top,” says Nicole G. Paquette, Senior Vice President for Born Free USA. “These new revelations of prolonged chaining of elephants should not only have significant implications for this case, but also assist in our national efforts to pass legislation prohibiting cruel training practices commonly used on captive elephants.”

The plaintiffs are represented by the public interest law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal.

Media Contacts:

Tracy Silverman, Esq./Animal Welfare Institute: 301-537-0612, [e-mail]
Anita Edson/ASPCA: 212-876-7700 x 4566, [e-mail]
Michael Markarian/The Fund for Animals: [e-mail]
Nicole Paquette/Born Free USA united with API: 916-622-7170, [e-mail]
Tom Rider: 202-374-1503

[marion]

SO WHAT HAPPENED...I DID NOT KNOW THIS WAS UP

NOW CALLING ALL THOSE NUMBERS..WHAT WAS DONE ON MAY 21?

WHY DIDNT I KNOW.
I FEEL TERRIBLE..I WANT TO STOP IT..

[Coleen Castaldo]

I saw a special on television a few months back, showing what the smaller circus do to elephants. I actually had to leave the room because I was crying so much.
And now to find out that a BIG circus like B&B participates in such actions makes me ill.
I always loved going to the circus as a kid: its unfortunate that my future children will not find the joys of the circus. Perhaps we will make zoo trips instead.

CC

[Vladimir]

I don't believe that if children understood the behind-the-scenes workings of the circus, they would want to go. The key, is educating children.

[marion]

http://www.hahaclips.net/videos.aspx/video~elephant_paints_a_self_p...


WONDERFUL VIDEO OF THESE MAJESTIC ANIMALS..

I GOT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR PRINTED! IN RINGLINGS OWN WINTER QUARTERS!
BE BACK WITH A COPY...

[marion]

Elephant training video shocking


Editor:

I would like to ask readers to go to YouTube site and do a search for "elephant training" where the method of training circus elephants is shown. You will be amazed.

Marion



THIS WAS IN TODAYS PAPER..IN VENICE/SARASOTA AREA!

I WAS AFRAID THEY WOULDNT PRINT IT!

PLEASE EVERYONE...JUST DO IT!
PS THEY ADDED THE SHOCKING PART...COME TO MY PAGE FOR REAL BACKROOM TREATMENT OF ELEPHANTS VIDEO..SO SAD..