Although some children dream of running away to join the circus, it is a safe bet that most animals forced to perform in circuses dream of running away from the circus. Colorful pageantry disguises the fact that animals used in circuses are captives who are forced, under threat of punishment, to perform confusing, uncomfortable, repetitious, and often-painful acts. Circuses would quickly lose their appeal if more people knew about the cruel methods used to train the animals; the cramped confinement, unacceptable travel conditions, and poor treatment that they endure; and what happens to them when they “retire.”

A Life Far Removed From Home
On its Web site, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus boasts that it “cross[es] the country 11 months out of the year, logging more than 25,000 miles.”(1) Because circuses are constantly traveling from city to city, access to basic necessities such as food, water, and veterinary care is often inadequate. The animals, most of whom are quite large and naturally active, are forced to spend most of their lives in the small barren cages used to transport them, where they have only enough room to stand and turn around. Most are allowed out of their cages only during the short periods when they must perform. Other animals, like elephants, are kept in leg shackles that only allow them to lift one foot at a time. The minimum requirements of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) are routinely ignored.
 
Climatically, the circus environment is quite different from the animals’ natural habitats, and temperature extremes cause misery and sometimes death. A lion cub named Clyde died in a sweltering boxcar as a Ringling Bros. train crossed the Mojave Desert during the middle of the day when temperatures exceeded 100°F. Clyde’s caretaker told the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that his supervisors refused to stop the train, even when he warned them that the lions were in danger.(2) The King Royal Circus lost its license and paid a $200,000 fee after an elephant named Heather died in a trailer in an Albuquerque parking lot where temperatures reached 120°F.(3) The Suarez Bros. Circus kept polar bears in hot, humid Puerto Rico in 8-foot-by-7-foot cages without air-conditioning or a regular chance to swim before U.S. officials finally ordered that the bears be confiscated and sent to a more suitable climate.(4) 

Veterinarians qualified to treat exotic animals aren’t usually present or available at circuses, and many animals have suffered and died as a result of a lack of proper medical attention. For instance, even though Kenny, a 2 1/2-year-old elephant, was obviously ill, he was forced to perform in two Ringling Bros. shows, entering the ring three times. He subsequently died later that evening.(5)

During the winter off-season, animals used in circuses may be kept in traveling crates or barn stalls; some are even kept in trucks. Such unrelieved physical confinement has very harmful physical and psychological effects on animals. These effects are often indicated by unnatural behaviors such as repeated head-bobbing, swaying, and pacing.(6) A study of circuses conducted by Animal Defenders International in the United Kingdom “found abnormal behaviors of this kind in all of the species observed.” Investigators witnessed elephants who were chained for 70 percent of the day, horses who were confined for 23 hours a day, and large cats who were kept in cages up to 99 percent of the time.(7)

Beaten Into Submission
Physical punishment has always been the standard training method for animals in circuses. It is standard practice to beat, shock, and whip animals to make them perform—over and over again—tricks that make no sense to them. The AWA does not prohibit the use of bullhooks, whips, electrical shock, or other devices used by circus trainers. Trainers drug some animals to make them “manageable” and remove the teeth and claws from others. 

Video taken during a PETA undercover investigation of Carson & Barnes Circus revealed Carson & Barnes’ animal care director, Tim Frisco, viciously attacking, yelling and cursing at, and shocking endangered Asian elephants. Frisco instructed other elephant trainers to beat the elephants with a bullhook as hard as they could and to sink the sharp metal bullhook into the animals’ flesh and twist it back and forth until they screamed in pain. The videotape also showed a handler using a blowtorch on an elephant’s skin to remove hair and chained elephants and caged bears exhibiting stereotypic behaviors caused by mental distress.

Clyde Beatty-Cole circus has been cited repeatedly by the USDA for violations of animal care. According to congressional testimony provided by former Beatty-Cole elephant keeper Tom Rider, “[I]n White Plains, N.Y., when Pete did not perform her act properly, she was taken to the tent and laid down, and five trainers beat her with bullhooks.”  Rider also told officials that “[a]fter my three years working with elephants in the circus, I can tell you that they live in confinement and they are beaten all the time when they don’t perform properly.”(8)

The lives of baboons, chimpanzees, and other primates used in circuses are a far cry from those of their wild relatives, who live in large, close-knit communities and travel together for miles each day through forests, savannahs, and hills. Primates are highly social, intelligent, and caring animals who suffer when deprived of companionship. Like all animals used in entertainment, primates do not perform unless they are forced to—often through intimidation, abuse, and solitary confinement. After watching video footage of baboons performing in a traveling circus called Baboon Lagoon, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research in Kenya, said, “[T]raining most baboons to do tricks of the sort displayed is not trivial ... it is highly likely that it required considerable amounts of punishment and intimidation.”(9)

The tricks that animals are forced to perform—bears balancing on balls, apes riding motorcycles, elephants standing on two legs—are physically uncomfortable and behaviorally unnatural. The whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bullhooks, and other tools used during circus acts are reminders that the animals are being forced to perform. These “performances” teach audiences nothing about how animals behave under natural circumstances.

Animals Rebel
These intelligent captives sometimes snap under the pressure of constant abuse; others make their feelings abundantly clear when they see a chance. Tyke, an African elephant with Circus International, ran amok in Hawaii, killing her trainer and injuring 13 others before police shot her to death.(10) Five days earlier, Elaine, another elephant with the same circus, pinned eight children and their parents under a fence that separated the first row of spectators from the circus rings.(11)

As Florida Officer Blaine Doyle, who shot 47 rounds into Janet, an elephant who ran amok with three children on her back at the Great American Circus in Palm Bay, noted, “I think these elephants are trying to tell us that zoos and circuses are not what God created them for ... but we have not been listening.”(12) Since 1990, PETA has documented 65 human deaths and more than 130 injuries attributable to captive elephant rampages. Please visit www.circuses.com/attacks-ele03.asp for more information.

What You Can Do
As more people become aware of the cruelty involved in forcing animals to perform, circuses that use animals are finding fewer places to set up their big tops. The use of animals in entertainment has already been restricted or banned in several U.S. localities—such as South Carolina and Orange County and Pasadena, California—as well as in cities around the world, like New Delhi, Belfast, and Rio de Janeiro. The council of the Chester-le-Street district in the U.K. banned events in which animals perform as “a relic of a bygone era.”(13)

Don’t patronize circuses that use animals. PETA can provide literature to pass out to patrons if the circus comes to your town. Find out about state and local animal protection laws, and report any possible violations to authorities. Contact PETA for information on ways to get an animal-display ban passed in your area.

Take your family to see only animal-free circuses, such as Cirque du Soleil or the Pickle Family Circus.

References

1) Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, “Town Without a ZIP Code,” Feld Entertainment, Inc., 2004.
2) Marc Kaufman, “USDA Investigates Death of Circus Lion; Activists Challenge Ringling Bros.’ Account, Say They Notified Federal Officials,” The Washington Post, 8 Aug. 2004.
3) “Circus to Appeal Elephant-Death Fine,” Associated Press, 17 Dec. 1997.
4) Howie Paul Hartnett, “2 of 3 Polar Bears Make It to N.C.,” Charlotte Observer, 20 Nov. 2002.
5) P. Douglas Filaroski, “Animal Rights Activists Protest Circus, Recall Elephants’ Death,” Florida Times-Union, 20 Jan. 2002.
6) Randi Hutter Epstein, “Circus Life Drives Animals Insane, Two British Rights Groups Contend,” Associated Press, 24 Aug. 1993.
7) Jan Creamer and Tim Phillips, “The Ugliest Show on Earth,” Animal Defenders, Ltd., last accessed 22 Nov. 2004.
8) Testimony of Tom Rider, Legislative Hearing on H.R.2929, 13 Jun. 2000.
9) Robert Sapolsky, letter to PETA, Jun. 2004.
10) Paula Gillingham et al., “1 Killed, 13 Injured; Panic at Blaisdell,” The Honolulu Advertiser, 21 Aug. 1994.
11) Paula Gillingham et al., “Family Recalls Brush With Another Elephant,” The Honolulu Advertiser, 21 Aug. 1994.
12) Louis Sahagun, “Elephants Pose Giant Dangers,” Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 1994.
13) “Circuses Face New Ban,” The Journal (U.K.), 27 Nov. 2000.