'Big top' entertainment makes animals suffer

Lauren Otto

Date published: 4/7/2006

The circus is in town, bringing with it the many wild animals kept in intense confinement and forced to travel in poorly ventilated boxcars or trailers during all kinds of extreme weather conditions for up to 11 months a year.

Laws protecting animals in traveling shows are inadequate and poorly enforced. The Animal Welfare Act establishes only minimum guidelines, which are often ignored.

In fact, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has had multiple citations and charges from the USDA for the treatment of its animals.

Animals in circuses face training based on domination with bull-hooks and whips and can spend much of their lives in chains.

Many elephants used by circuses who would normally stay with their mothers for many years are captured in the wild while very young and forcibly removed from their mothers.

These animals are more than commodities and deserve to be in a natural environment. They exist for more than the frivolous purposes of "entertainment."

Please consider visiting an animal sanctuary if you like to see live animals.

Instead of a circus, go to a performance by Cirque du Soleil, which offers amazing feats and all of the excitement of a circus, but not at the expense of other living creatures.

Stafford

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Date published: 4/7/2006