Circus animals and the media
The following are some statements by journalists on the plight of circus animals.
" I despair at the indignity suffered by exotic animals, particularly lions, tigers, bears, elephants and monkeys. It's like a throwback to the 18th century freak shows. ...
I concede that the circus industry has done much to clean up its act. Exotic animals are given greater exercise opportunities. Lions and tigers are allowed 'ground time' in secure cages where they can exercise or sleep. Elephants are freed from leg chains to roam inside electric fences.
True, they are improvements, a recognition of past cruelty, but trapping an elephant behind an electric fence is hardly dignified. Just better than the old ways.
In the past 100 years, bear baiting, cock fighting, and live hare coursing have been outlawed. Zoos have reduced the number of species and created larger, more realistic enclosures for those which remain.
There is no reason to stop now. I remain uncomfortable watching lions at the Adelaide zoo held in cages vastly superior to circus cages and enclosures. ...
No community can claim to be civilised if it does not defend the basic dignity of defenceless animals, particularly exotic animals removed relatively recently from wild freedom.
That dignity is not extended to exotic circus animals. Some improvements have been introduced, I grant. But they are not good enough.
We cannot return existing performing beasts to the wild but they could be retired to an open zoo environment to live out their lives in relative peace. ...
If we claim to be a civilised society, it is time we banned exotic animals from circuses ."
(Rex Jory, "Civilised? No, not while circuses cage animals" The Advertiser , 21 October 1997, page 11)
" It is difficult to believe that elephants enjoy being clowns or that lions and other creatures genetically programmed to roam the veldt, rejoice in a life of being caged and performing in the ring. Christians are no longer lion fodder in the circus maximus; bear baiting and cock fighting have gone the way of public executions. Performing animals under the big top will go the same way and, it seems, quite soon ."
(Editorial, The Advertiser , 18 November 1994)
Comments following a series of attacks by elephants in the USA. In 1994 in Hawaii, the elephant Tyke killed her trainer before escaping from the circus and injuring 12 more people. She was shot many times before she finally died.
" The elephants are angry and they're just not going to take it any more. Three times this American summer a "circus elephant" has run amok and hurt its captors. ...
Left to their own devices elephants are highly social beings which enjoy extended family relationships; aunts baby sit, babies play together under watchful eyes, lovemaking is gentle and complex, and elephant relatives mourn their dead.
Life under the big top means: pay attention to your trainers, feel the bite of their implements in your flesh, don't stumble or falter even if you feel tired or ill; obey, obey, obey. ...
If you have wondered how these magnificent creatures keep from going mad while waiting in leg chains, night after night, eyes riveted on the person with the metal hook, ready to circle to the music in their beaded head dresses, perhaps the answer is: they don't ."
(Ingrid Newkirk, "Not even a thick hide can tolerate abuse forever", reprinted in The Sydney Morning Herald , 25 August 1994)
" As animal experts point out, the best example of what animals need is in the wild. If animals need space for their livelihood then space is a critical factor to their well-being.
In their natural environment, lions live in a family, a large social group. They need to breed, hunt and roam freely. These needs are innate, it's part of their evolution-their continuous genetic adaptation to the environment.
The laws of nature show lions need space, as do many other 'wild' animals. Nature never intended that lions evolved to live in cages or perform tricks to a timetable and a whip. So is it fair, or right, that we continue to subject these wild animals to a circus life? ...
So what are their lives worth? A $14 entrance fee and two hours of 'entertainment'? "
(Joanne Hider, "What price the lives of performing circus animals?", Eastern Messenger , 8 June 1994)
Comments on bear acts brought to Australia by the Moscow Circus.
" In one incident, as the bear, balanced on a flat length of timber, is lifted into the air and tossed into a somersault to land on another length, the natural instinct to lash out at this mortifying, not to say terrifying, indignity becomes too much to contain. As it lands, it rushes at the pretty, bikini-clad assistant.
She is clasped in a bear hug ... Luckily, the claws are blunted and the muzzle saves her from being decapitated. ...
The second incident is more dramatic. A very large bear, tightly held by a choker collar that assists control as it is led into the arena, refuses its cue to climb up to the tight-wire. As its handler insists, it retaliates. A wrestling struggle ensues and one of the safety-wire hands runs from the wings to weigh in. Without the muzzle, there is no doubt what the outcome would have been.
But the two hefty Russians prevail and the bear, eyes glinting with fear, succumbs. The enjoyment of the bear act is gone for many in the audience. ...
The bears return to the cages that have become their home. The public does not see these cages because backstage, as well as being an official quarantine area, is also a no-go security area, even to the media, once the first show is under way.
It does not see that the bears live in tiny cages, measuring about 1 metre by 1.5 metres, inside a larger transport container. After a show they may be washed and fed, perhaps allowed the wider freedom of the container itself for a few hours, but a great deal of their time is spent in the smaller cages. They are not big enough for the larger bears to lie down without touching both ends ."
(Mike McEwan, "Bringing weight to bear on ringside animal acts", The Advertiser , 14 March 1988, page 25)