Kinship Circle Column runs monthly in The Healthy Planet. Ms. Shoss is also a contributing writer for VegNews, AnimalsVoice Online, Family Safety and Health Magazine and other publications.
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By Brenda Shoss
Tension Under The Big Top
A public forum before a legislative committee does not ordinarily draw a mob on a Wednesday afternoon in Maine. Yet on February 19, 2003 nearly 100 people squeeze into an Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee hearing to hiss or hurrah through three-and-half hours of deposition. At one point, all eyes fixate on a wooden pole that ends in a curved metal hook.
Foes and allies of the bill, "An Act to Prevent Cruelty to Elephants," examine the baseball-bat length device. Proponents of the nation's first state bill to ban the use of elephants in traveling exhibits claim the sharp hook is jabbed into an elephants' face, toes, knees and groin to punish and dominate. Opponents say the disciplinary hooks direct the 100,000-pound animals.
If the bill passes, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus won't visit Maine any time soon. In fact, all circuses that employ elephants to "perform tricks, fight or participate in a performance for the amusement or entertainment of an audience" will become taboo in the state.
"Certainly I don't want to keep circuses out of Maine," the bill's sponsor, Sen. Peggy Pendleton, said in a report for the Blethen Maine News Service. "Just remove this act.
Pendleton's opinion reflects rising concerns about behind-the-scenes treatment of exotic animals in traveling acts. Comparable bills in Tennessee, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are under review. The Animal Protection Institute (API) lists 17 US cities and municipalities, 19 Canadian provinces, and five countries as animal-free under the Big Top. Cirque du Soleil, The New Pickle Family Circus, Circus Millennia, and over 20 non-animal circuses now attract larger crowds.
Over several decades, circuses under federal, state and local surveillance have accumulated violations of animal welfare laws. On June 13, 2000 Tom Rider, a former employee of both Ringling Bros. and Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus, testified before Congress that "[Elephants] live in confinement and they are beaten all the time when they don't perform properly...When I became disturbed about the continual beatings, I was told, 'That's discipline.'"
Standard training, what Rider calls "daily systematic abuse," includes beatings and food/water deprivation to prevent a "mess" in the ring. Front paws are burned to coerce animals onto their hind legs. Big cats are choked down with neck ropes. Elephants are bound from tusks to feet in martingales. To subordinate the animals, trainers need to keep them "constantly in pain or in fear of pain," claims Tufts University veterinarian Paul Waldau.
Tim Frisco, animal care director for Carson & Barnes Circus, intimidates elephants with his "make-'em-scream" method. Hollering obscenities, Frisco strikes the animals with electric shock prods and blowtorches hair off their sensitive skin. In one investigative video, the handler advises a trainee to "tear that foot off! Sink it [bullhook] in the foot. When you hear that screaming, then you know you got their attention."
If animals in circuses are "the most enriched animals on the face of the earth," as John Kirtland, Ringling Bros. executive director for animal stewardship contends, trainers would be armed with treats and other forms of positive reinforcement. Instead, circuses pack an arsenal of bullhooks, chains, ropes, cinch collars, shock prods, axe handles, baseball bats, metal pipes and whips.
Some corporate sponsors have begun to shy away. Sears Roebuck and Company recently ended its liaison with Ringling Bros. Nervous publicists counteract bad press with a we-love-our-animals spin and warnings about "animal rights fanatics." A Ringling Bros. advertisement in a Maine newspaper depicted advocates of the Prevent Cruelty to Elephants bill as insatiable zealots set to ambush paper mills, fishing, restaurants, pet guardians and tourism.
"This ad personifies how the circus industry approaches the issue, void of any discussion of the cruelty issues or the animals they supposedly care about," says Robert Fisk Jr., president and director of Maine Friends of Animals.
In recent years, 20 animals under Ringling's "enrichment program" have died. Kenny, a three-year-old elephant, perished after suffering through two shows with gastrointestinal/upper respiratory infections. At age four the elephant Benjamen drowned while swimming unsupervised in a pond. An ailing Arabian horse collapsed during a procession and a wild-caught sea lion was found dead in her travel crate.
Arnie's shackles only came off when it was time to leap through hoops or dash over platforms under the threat of a whip. The Bengal Tiger finally snapped during a routine photo shoot. When Arnie lunged at Richard Chipperfield, the trainer's brother locked the big cat inside a crate. There, as other tigers watched, Graham Chipperfield pumped five bullets into Arnie at point-blank range.
Arnie's death augments a prolific career in abuse for the Chipperfield family, suppliers of animals and trainers to Ringling Bros. Earlier, a British court convicted Mary Chipperfield of 12 counts of animal cruelty for beating a baby chimpanzee with a riding crop. Her husband, Roger Cawley, was also sentenced for bludgeoning an elephant to "see how sick it really was."
Despite numerous citations for trauma, physical harm, and behavioral stress to animals; deficient veterinary care; and insufficient sanitation, exercise, space, and shade for animals--Ringling Bros. resists most welfare reforms. In written comments filed with the USDA, the corporation specifically opposes a draft policy to ban hot shots, shocking collars or belts and ankuses.
Circus reps argue that animal acts offer children a closeup glimpse of exotic creatures. In reality, most informed youngsters would shun any institution that mistreats animals. Forcing captive beasts to perform unnatural stunts does not teach kids about life in the wild. Elephants instinctively roam 20 to 50 miles everyday, pausing to indulge in mud and dust baths. Circus elephants perform up to three shows a day, with 50 weeks of travel in frigid or sweltering boxcars.
Moreover, statistics show that elephants--who often seize the chance to escape during exhibitions--caused at least 30 human deaths and over 100 serious injuries since 1990. Captive felines assaulted 65 people, roughly one-third of whom died according to the API. Children can safely and accurately learn about wild animals through libraries, documentaries or sanctuaries.
Dwindling attendance reflects the public's evolving consensus about animal acts: Bring on the clowns, trapeze artists and jugglers. Wild animals do not belong under the Big Top.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
1. Ask businesses that sponsor circuses with performing wild animals to drop their support due to animal cruelty concerns and public safety risks. For sample letters to MasterCard International (which offers discount Ringling Bros. tickets to all cardholders), the Shrine organization and other sponsors, contact Kinship Circle: info@kinshipcircle.org
2. When the circus is in town, ask newspapers--which often underwrite costs for advertisements and accept free tickets in exchange for favorable reviews--to sponsor all-human troupes rather than animal circuses.
3. Ask the USDA to enforce Animal Welfare Act regulations, which state: Physical abuse shall not be used to train, work, or otherwise handle animals. Urge officials to interrogate, charge and penalize circuses for violations of the AWA.
Acting Deputy Administrator
USDA-APHIS, Headquarters Office
4700 River Road, Unit 84
Riverdale, MD 20737-1234
ph: 301-734-7833, fax: 301-734-4978
USDA-APHIS email: ace@usda.gov
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