We are embarking on a dramatic change in our country that has nothing to do with the election. The days of hauling animals around in sweltering circus boxcars and tractor-trailers are quickly coming to an end. Last year, the Cole Bros. Circus went dark. The Big Apple Circus just filed for bankruptcy. Now, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is calling it quits.
Times and sensibilities have radically evolved since P.T. Barnum duped his first sucker. In the 1800s, we didn’t know that elephants are keenly intelligent, social animals who walk for many miles every day in the company of their extended families. Lions and tigers were viewed simply as beasts to be “tamed,” rather than as the magnificent animals they are.
But the dark side of circuses started to make its way into the light. A former Ringling staffer gave a chilling eyewitness account of baby elephants torn from their mothers, tied up with ropes, and intimidated and threatened with bullhooks (heavy batons with a sharp metal hook on the end) until they gave up all hope.
Ringling owner Kenneth Feld gave sworn court testimony that trainers routinely hit elephants with bullhooks, whip them and sometimes use electric prods on them. Elephant mothers were forced to give birth while chained by three legs. Federal inspectors found bound and injured baby elephants at Ringling’s Florida breeding compound, where bullhooks and chains are still in use today.
Kenneth H. Vail, who for many years was the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s lead legal counsel on animal welfare cases, said, “If I were an elephant, I wouldn’t want to be with Feld Entertainment. It’s a tough life.”
Besides the overwhelming volume of whistleblower and video evidence of the physical, mental and emotional abuse of animals used in the circus, decades of field study has made it clear that captivity has profoundly negative consequences for wild animals, not only in circuses but also in roadside zoos, aquariums and marine theme parks, too.
Genetic drives don’t just “disappear” because animals aren’t living in their natural habitats. All living beings denied their freedom know they are missing out on something critical. When deprived of every fundamental thing that gives their lives meaning, captive animals often become sick, lethargic and depressed. Some pace incessantly or bob and sway like crazed automatons. Others shut down altogether, waiting for the relief that will only come with death.
Primates may bite their own limbs until they are bloody and raw, and birds often pluck themselves bald out of frustration and despair. Orcas bash themselves into the sides of their cramped tanks and destroy their teeth gnawing on metal divider bars.
Former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry poignantly described a dolphin named Kathy who looked him in the eye, sank to the bottom of a steel tank and stopped breathing. Yes, captive bottlenose dolphins can commit suicide.
If we accept, as we must, that animals feel pain and joy, love and grief, and fear and longing, then we must also treat them with respect for who they are and stop inflicting lives of suffering on them in circuses, zoos and theme parks.