Elephants in the City

Thank you, Christine. Will do that!

Posting this quote from a fellow activist. I can’t confirm the information but wanted to post here “for the record”…

“INSIDE RINGLING BROS.

To all of you Everett Ringling Bros. protestors:
Everett protests are working! Ringling Bros. has 3 shows touring: small, medium, and large. Two years ago, Comcast had a 3-ring circus, the big one. This year they had a one-ring circus, the smallest and only show that travels by truck. Comcast used one of its arenas, which seats about 5000. The average show last weekend had an audience of only 800 to 1100 people. There are no tigers, lions, or animal acts other than three enslaved, damaged, dispirited, and heart-breaking elephants. There are other animals backstage for the audience to look at, a pony and horse, which don’t perform or get to leave their cages.

According to an employee who tours with and supports Ringling Bros, the “down side” of his job is “being in towns like Everett, where there are SO MANY protestors. Tacoma wasn’t that bad”. He mentioned the Ringling Bros. “sanctuary” in Florida, where, after touring for fifty years, the elephants get to “retire”. Ringling Bros. has been touring for forty years. The Program boasts that “Barak” was their first captive-born elephant, born the eve of Obama’s inauguration. They don’t mention if this was the same baby elephant that fell off a pedestal during “training” and was euthanized. The Florida “sanctuary”, where Ringling Bros. breeds, beats, and intimidates baby elephants into submission, is also available to researchers and scientists whose contribution to Asian elephant conservation is artificial insemination, and other lab experiments.

Between their humiliating 12-minute performances each show, the three elephants are chained behind Comcast, under a blue and white awning off the trailer that transports them. One man and his wife train and perform with the elephants, using billhooks for both. Two men, the trainer pulling the lead elephant by a billhook and an assistant carrying another device behind the elephants, bully them single file toward the basement entrance. They are power-washed before going backstage. I will never forget the haunting image of the smallest elephant passing below me, his ragged ears and scarred back; and his dark, ancient, hollow eyes…. like staring into the abyss. Seeing their slow, labored movement before the show, something must prod the elephants behind the curtain just before they jolt into the small ring. It’s as if pain triggers the only emotion they have left: Fear.

The show itself is an insult to intelligent elephants and people. The first time I watched the elephants in the ring was heart-rending. These highly sensitive, gifted animals are reduced to spinning, standing on their heads, sitting on each other, lifting their front legs, rolling over and playing dead, as if their model was an autistic spaniel. Saturday they did this three times, which was their only exercise and the only time they weren’t shackled to the short length of heavy chains and leg irons. The most demeaning and disturbing “trick” is when the youngest elephant is forced to lie down on his side, while the largest elephant circles behind him, hesitates, then is forced to step over him, sit on him, and raise both front legs like a dog begging for left-overs. This also gets the loudest roar from an audience challenged by stupid tricks.

Ringling Bros. has clearly not cleaned up its act since receiving the largest fine in circus history November 2011, or its mandatory AWA “compliance training” issued March 2012. During the last show, one elephant expressed his opinion, and mine, of Ringling Bros. He took a big dump in the middle of the ring, while the show circled around him and a circus employee swept up the mess, as if no one would notice -“