Let's say that the circus is truthful in it description of it treatment of its animals, including elephants. During the four months that these animals are traveling around the country, they are, for all intents and purposes, prisoners at the hands of numerous individuals who are more or less understanding of their needs and feelings. These are huge animals in need of large spaces to exercise, forage, interact with each other as elephants. To confine them to train cars for hours or days has to be stressful. To chain their legs (for whatever reason) must also be a terrible situation for them. To spend hours and hours and hours performing idiotic "tricks" so audiences can go "Oooh!" and "Aaah!" is pathetic. It is solely to amuse viewers and gain revenue for the circus--NOT to educate anyone! How anyone in their right mind can honestly believe that these magnificent animals are happy, contented, and enjoying their life-style in circuses must have come from another planet. Circ-de-soliel has the right idea for the 21st century. Have we not progressed at all in our understanding of our true relationship with the other animals we share this planet with? Stop the circus's skewed perception of "What the people want to see"! If "the people" knew the truth about the lives these beautiful beings (and not just the elephants!) lead, they would NEVER, NEVER go to a circus again.
Ever heard of the saying, "money is the root of all evil" -- well, that certainly applies here.
Jennifer Johnson is a paid liar. Everyone knows, and the Ringling Bros. elephant head (Troy Metzler) admits, that you have to hit elephants to get them to perform. Metzler told that to Chicago TV a couple of years ago.
If elephants aren't afraid of the bullhook/ankus they will not obey. Elephants are useless to the circus if they do not perform - and circus folks will do *whatever* it takes to force those elephants to do unnatural tricks.
It's very sad ... and it's all for the money. If people don't go to the circus it will help the animals.
As a result of a sworn affidavit describing HORRIFIC abuse, the USDA calls it "whatever" and gets them to pay a $400 fine so Carson and Barnes can claim that they have no violations on their record? No wonder the circuses can still travel the countryside torturing elephants, if the agency charged with looking out for their welfare is that lax and uncaring.
Carson & Barnes, and Ringling Bros. make money off the backs of animals, so it's no surprise they continue to profess their care for them.
But for the public: How can anyone continue to defend using animals in entertainment venues? Beating, chaining and caging social, intelligent animals and using them as props is morally indefensible.
From what I've seen a female of Charlottesville's female PETA activists could easily replace the elephants in a circus act.
Since circuses, zoos and exotic pets upset people, let's send all the lions, tigers, elephants, pandas, bears and anything bigger than a rat back to the country it originated in. That way they can all be slaughtered by poachers, or eaten by HIV positive natives that couldn't be saved by the billions of dollars Bill Gates has lavished upon the diseased. Then no one will have anything to whine about and that will placate fat, liberal white females that obviously have way too much time and money on their hands. Time for PETA to start funding a program entitled "Let's send the animals back home."
How selfish of us! The American people need to return all animals to their homelands immediately so that the starving hordes can get enough food to hand on for a few more days. That way they can live long enough to slither into this country and seek treatment at UVA's emergency room for their medical issues---and liberal folks from New England, who now run this area, will be only too happy to let the public pay for all of this largesse through taxes and hidden charges. Hooray for the millions that will be saved by animals now uselessly kept in American zoos and circuses.
rufus you don't have a clue. One of the great propaganda triumphs of the American media is that Africa is being decimated by AIDS and other problems. Truly a big lie. Serious students of demographics, along with the UN and World Health Organization, know that the African population is going off the chart literally IN SPITE of all the diseases and starvation.
What to do? Well, I for one don't think that the imported animal population has the required protein and carbohydrate count to help millions in distress. However, if we were to export Sally Struthers, Ted Kennedy and a few female PETA activists to the continent of Africa I would bet that the population could make it through winter.
PETA has the big picture. It is much better to let a species be wiped off the face of the earth rather than let animals be exploited by zoos, circuses, collectors are such. I hope that the poachers of Africa and Asia sue PETA for discriminating against them by protecting endangered animals inside the United States--thus depriving poor third world poachers of their livelihood. (Lawyers take note of this new windfall awaiting you).
Once all the contentious animals have joined the dinosaurs in extinction things will be better. Then, when a little boy in central Virginia asks his dad what a hippo or elephant looked like, his dad can hold up a picture of his wife in her bathing suit and he can tell his son "this is what a hippo and elephant looked like."
Guys listen up. When a girl tells you her big cause in life is animal rights, don't buy her that drink or even talk to her. Just run. If you have time, introduce her to someone that you hate. These women are poison and if they get involved with you it is not because they want to spend the rest of their life making you happy. These women are driven psychotics and they will invariably cost you a fortune in court one way or the other. Run from them unless you like the idea of losing everything in court one day and then having to work until the day you die.
Circus elephants should not be beaten with bull-hooks and electricuted to perform their "tricks" such as an elephant standing on its head. Elephants deserve to be treated humanely and of course shouldn't be poached either. It does not have to be one or the other.
If PETA is serious about elephants, tigers, and all the rest, they should take the billions of dollars they have gotten from the estates of rich old ladies, who were left fortunes by their tasteless husbands, buy all the animals from zoos, circuses, private owners, and send the things back to the third world so we can end all this nonsense and work on the REAL problems this country faces. No, Tennessee is not the answer, GET RID OF EVERYTHING because the CRYING won't stop until the animals are overseas. This country is diseased and "animal rights" are one good example of the malaise. Perhaps the next legal hurdle for PETA will be protecting animals from "mental cruelty" inflicted upon them by humans? Don't laugh, the first entry in this stream talked about "understanding the needs and feelings" of elephants. Right, think about it. Sounds a lot like a lawyer making a pitch for the house, pension, alimony and child support in divorce court doesn't it? Send everything back to Africa and let the natives turn them into stew--after all, they were stolen from Africa now weren't they? Let us end this great crisis that has paralyzed the nation.
America has truly devolved into a base pop culture where animals command more attention and hand wringing than the real problems of the day.
I wonder if the "incriminating" video was another case of artful cutting and splicing along with computer generated special effects and graphics. Single issue groups, and PETA is only one of many, have large legal staffs to assist them in these kinds of games. The circus is long gone and I'm sure their schedule was carefully calculated into the release of the video---it was a safe bet that no one would want to stay in Charlottesville and pay for expert analysis of the videotape to see how it was constructed, paying a lawyer 300 dollars an hour to file discovery motions on the local PETA chapter to see what really happened behind the scenes, etc, etc. Small businesses don't have the time and money to contest such charges and the activist groups know this game only too well.
Not too many years ago PETA launched a carefully planned campaign to end the cruel practice of deer hunting in Virginia. They only backed off after they kept getting their faces slapped by the ugly reality that about 90% of deer killed in this state are polished off by motor vehicles instead of hunters. That didn't feed anybody's Messiah complex. The campaign was quietly dropped--it had never happened you know. Apparently a few corpulent PETA types had Bambi ricochet off their minivans and that had more than a few outdoors types laughing. Here is an example of PETA hypocrisy. In a matter of a few months thousands of half million dollar townhouses were hastily constructed in Ashburn, Virginia and this caused countless deer to die slow deaths due to starvation. Blinded by hunger, one small doe actually ran into a car I was riding in--I could count the ribs in her side, she was that thin. The money grubbing developers and real estate firms, the same people who have done so much to improve the quality of life around here, weren't vilified by PETA in the media for premeditated deer genocide. No surprise, even the knaves at PETA know when they are up against wallets bigger than their own. Deer were getting killed all along Route 7 and around Ashburn, not a peep from PETA. Thousands of deer strikes go unreported--drivers don't file police reports unless their vehicles incur damage that goes over the basic deductible their policy has. There's no point, and this means the number of collisions between deer and vehicles is grossly unreported--cars and trucks kill many more deer than PETA would have you know about since this undercuts their sell to the public.
I remember the crusade against deer hunting by PETA. A couple long time hunters I knew worked in auto body shops in Arlington, Fairdax and Falls Church. The guys were sporting PETA buttons and I asked them what was up since I knew they were life long hunters. The owner smiled and told me "I think hunting deer is cruel and unusual punishment, especially since the average cost to a car owner is several thousand dollars to put his car back together". Keep up the good work PETA--we love you.
John, is that you? The PETA girls were pushing the anti hunting drive some ten years ago.
I would bet that expert police analysis of the PETA tape would show it to be a contrivance. I asked a guy at the circus about this stuff, and he told me "the elephants earn their keep by giving rides to small children at five dollars a head-ten kids is fifty bucks and this keeps 'em in hay. I haven't seen shocks to make them do tricks."
John that is you and Tom isn't it? I'll get in this one.
I challenge all men out there to look at themselves in their bathroom mirror and ask "How can I go on once the snail darter, snow leopard, condor and yes, the elephant, join slender central Virginia females in extinction"?
T Rex is gone, but we are doing okay without him. If Africa, Asia, and South America are unwilling to preserve their own heritage, what gives the cheeseburger chomping, cell phone in their face while driving, American soccer moms license to save the world yet one more time?
Okay Tom, top that one.