The Captivity Question 2.0

Are circuses really a good idea? 

Are elephants supposed to be standing on their heads for entertainment? 

Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus

"Imagine if you had to walk to work every day while suffering from a debilitating medical condition that caused your joints to ache and your feet to throb. At work, you'd be kept on your feet constantly and forced to perform physical labor for long shifts. You'd be given no chance to recuperate (much less retire) and when you slowed down or balked, your boss would hit you with something resembling a fireplace poker or would stick the pointy end of the instrument under your chin and drag you around. When you weren't working, you would live in chains.

That's pretty much what life is for the elephants in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. They travel up to 50 weeks a year in cramped and filthy boxcars and trailers, to be kept tightly chained by two legs (and sometimes all four) and to be beaten for even looking sideways at a trainer.

At least 29 elephants, including four babies, have died since 1992, including an 8-month-old baby elephant named Riccardo who was destroyed after he fractured his hind legs when he fell from a circus pedestal.

Elephants are not the only animals with Ringling to suffer tragic deaths. In 2004, a 2-year-old lion died of apparent heatstroke while the circus train crossed the Mojave Desert.

Ringling has failed to meet minimal federal standards for the care of animals used in exhibition as established by the AWA. Since 2000, the USDA has cited Ringling dozens of times for serious AWA non-compliances, including the following: improper handling of dangerous animals; failure to provide animals —including an elephant with a stiff leg, an elephant with a large swelling on her leg, elephants with abrasions, a camel with bloody wounds, and a camel injured on train tracks—with veterinary care; causing trauma, behavioral stress, physical harm, and unnecessary discomfort to two elephants who sustained injuries when they ran amok during a performance; endangering tigers who were nearly baked alive in a boxcar because of poor maintenance of their enclosures; failure to test elephants for tuberculosis; and unsanitary feeding practices.

In late 2011, Feld Entertainment, Ringling’s parent company, was ordered to pay $270,000 by the USDA — the largest civil penalty ever assessed against an exhibitor under the AWA — for dozens of AWA violations dating from June 2007 to August 2011.

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will be in Albany beginning May 2, 2013 at the Times Union Center. Every ticket purchased supports this abuse and will give reason for them to continue to return to the Albany area."

~Anna Wilkinson
The Record
April 2, 2013

Go make a difference!