BECAUSE ANIMAL CRUELTY IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT

Although some children dream of running away to join the circus, it is likely that most animals forced to perform in circuses dream of running away from them. Colorful pageantry disguises the fact that animals used in circuses are mere captives forced to perform unnatural and often painful acts. Circuses would quickly lose their appeal if the details of the animals' treatment, confinement, training and "retirement" became widely known.

Circus animals often suffer from inadequate care. The animals, most of whom are quite large and naturally active, are forced to spend most of their lives in the small cages used to transport them, and they are allowed out of their cages only for short periods when they must perform. The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) merely requires that the animals have enough room to stand up and turn around when confined, yet even these minimal regulations are routinely ignored. In just a two-year period, Ringling Bros. and Barnun & Bailey Circus was sited for 65 violations of the AWA.

During the Winter off-season, animals used in circuses may be kept in traveling crates or in barn stalls; some of are even kept in trucks. Few circuses have the funds or the desire to put much money into comfortable winter shelters, since off-season housing is used for only a few months per year. Such unrelieved physical confinement has very harmful physical and psychological effects on animals; A study conducted by the Born Free Foundation found that confined elephants spend 22% of the time in abnormal actions, such as repeated head-bobbing or swaying, and confined bears spend about 30% of their time pacing.

For the elephants, tigers, bears, and other wild animals used in circuses, there is no such thing as "positive reinforcement" --only varing degrees of punishment and deprivation. Animals do not voluntarily ride bicycles, stand on their heads, or jump through rings of fire. The only reason they perform these difficult tricks is because they are terrified of what will happen if they don't.

Physical punishment has long been the standard training method for animals in circuses. Some species are less able to adapt to training techniques than others, and as a result suffer great stress during training sessions. Some animals are drugged to make them "manageable", and some have their teeth removed. The AWA puts no restrictions on what training methods may be used, and according to former kind animal trainer Pat Derby. "After 25 years of observing and documenting circuses, I know there are no kind animal trainers." Circus patrons are often shocked to discover that even renowned trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams has been videotaped whipping animals.