Animals are kept throughout their entire life as slaves and disciplined by their trainers in an extremely cruel way. Elephants, tigers and other animals, that the circus uses to entertain the audience, don’t stand on their heads, don’t jump through hoops and don’t walk on their toes because they want to. They perform these and other complicated tricks because they are scared of what will happen if they don’t.
To make animals perform circus trainers abuse them using electroshock batons, muzzles, whips, tight collars, bull hooks and other painful instruments in the circus sphere. Video footage of the training sessions shows that elephants are harassed with bull hooks and electroshock batons. The circuses easily escape with such routine cruelty as the government does not follow the training sessions, and the workers are cautious when they are in front of the audience.
Under permanent detention
Circuses travel almost year round, in all extreme weather conditions, sometimes for days at a time. While transit travel, animals are limited to freight wagons, trailers or trucks where they may not have access to basic needs such as food, water and veterinary help. Elephants are chained, and large cats are closed in tight, dirty cages where they eat, drink, sleep, defecate and urinate – all in one place. And there is no relief when the animals get to the show where they stay in a cage and are chained in basements and parking lots.
Danger to the audience
Frustrated by the years of beatings, bull hooks and chains, some elephants are collapsing. And when an elephant rebels, the coaches can’t protect themselves or the audience.
Many elephants rushed out of circuses and fled angrily across the streets crashing into buildings, attacking audience members, wounding and killing workers. As a result, the elephants were injured and some were killed in a hail of bullets.
In 2014, During the Moolah Shrine Circus show in Missouri, for example, three elephants escaped from their coaches in the area of children’s walks after they were stressed by the circus noise. In freedom for about 45 minutes, they damaged many cars in the parking lot before the coaches managed to regain control over them. It was not the first time an elephant had run out of a circus. A few years earlier an elephant named Viola escaped from “Cole Bros. Circus “in Virginia. She had fled from the coaches and stormed directly along the tail of a group of people waiting to buy tickets, making some sprint around the parking lot outside. Other animals, such as tigers and zebras, also try to break through when they get through the streets of the city before being captured again.
Prohibition of circuses
Because of concerns about animal abuse and public safety, more communities are prohibiting or restricting the use of animals in circuses.
Ruthless end
At the end of their long suffering, animals that are too old for the circus are rarely able to hope for a quiet end or a new life. There is almost no circus to be able to afford this. So, the animals either fall asleep or are sold and taken in an unknown direction.
Circus without animals
The public demand for circuses without cruelty continues to grow. James Hamid Sr., a famous producer of Shrine circuses, says: “When we look at the future, we see that all circuses go to productions without animals.”