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Circuses
HSI Asia opposes the use of wild animals in circuses and other traveling acts. Because cruelty to animals is inherent to such displays, we seek to end such uses of wild animals. We work to achieve this by increasing public awareness and strengthening the laws that protect captive wild and exotic animals.
An Inhumane Existence Day after Day
Wild animals used in circuses and other traveling acts are routinely subjected to months on the road confined in small, barren cages. With few exceptions, they are provided with limited and inconsistent veterinary care. These animals often live in filthy and dilapidated enclosures or are chained in one position for the majority of the day with no chance to move, let alone express their full range of natural behaviors or to socialize with other members of their species. Their routine care is often entrusted to seasonal or temporary circus employees who have little or no experience caring for such animals.
How Do They Get Them to Do Those Tricks?
Despite claims to the contrary, trainers often use excessive and abusive training methods to establish and maintain the control necessary to make animals perform tricks. Although positive reinforcement is indeed part of a trainer's repertoire, it is by no means his or her only tool, and it is not enough to guarantee control of a four-ton elephant in the ring.
Regardless of training, the wild animals used in circuses behave instinctively and unpredictably. On August 20, 1994, at a Circus International matinee in Hawaii, an African elephant named Tyke crushed her trainer to death, injured another circus worker and 12 spectators, ran loose in the streets for 30 minutes, and was killed after being shot more than 80 times by police. Such incidents bring to light not only the suffering and stress endured by performing wild animals, but also the danger they can pose to circus workers and the public.
Animal-Free Circuses and Entertainment
Animals in circuses often suffer stress, neglect, isolation and possibly deliberate abuse. In response to these conditions, circus animals may attempt to escape or retaliate against their handlers. Many documented injuries, traumas and deaths, both human and animal, have been brought about by stressed and abused circus animals. These tragedies are unnecessary and should be eliminated in an educated society.
Animal-free circuses eliminate the possibility of injury or death caused by wild animals. There are many entertaining, intelligent and safe alternatives to the abusive and dangerous form of entertainment that traditional animal circuses present.
As the public becomes
more informed about the negative side of traditional animal circuses, many
clubs, organizations, charities, and schools are choosing to sponsor
cruelty-free entertainment for their events. Please join these groups in
supporting safe, humane, and responsible animal-free events.
Circus Myths
Advertisements for circuses promise safe, family fun, colorful costumes, and exotic animals performing tricks at the snap of their trainers' fingers—big cats jumping through burning hoops, elephants balancing on their hind legs, and bears riding bicycles. But there's something no circus wants you to see: the suffering of the animals.
The Humane Society of the United States has monitored circuses for 20 years, chronicling training methods and living conditions that the animals routinely experience. We have kept track of incidents and anecdotes that explode many of the myths that circuses want you to believe—myths that help them perpetuate the big lie behind the big top.
Myth #1: Circus animals perform tricks out of love for their trainers.
Fact: While circus promoters claim that trainers use only positive reinforcement, or rewards, reports prove otherwise. Circus training methods include beating animals with clubs and other objects (even during performances) and depriving them of food. Trainers sometimes strike elephants with sharpened hooks, which can result in physical injury. Trainers resort to brutal methods to maintain a position of dominance. Yet wild animals will always behave in instinctive and unpredictable ways and can never be made willing or safely manageable through training.
Myth #2: Circus animals are like beloved children, taught and nurtured their whole lives.
Fact: Many circus animals are leased seasonally from dealers. The animals move from circus to circus, following seasonal contracts. Many circuses don't bother to provide regular, competent veterinary care. Animals who aren't obedient or who have grown too old to perform may be sold or given to zoos, roadside attractions, research laboratories, or private individuals—options unlikely to improve their quality of life.
Myth #3: After the show, the animals rest in comfort.
Fact: After the show, the animals are locked in cages and shipped to the next town. Circus animals spend much of their lives in small, often dirty cages, barely able to turn around. Circus animals often are shipped in trucks and railway cars without heat or air conditioning and often are deprived of food and water for extended periods.
Myth #4: The circus is safe fun for the whole family.
Fact: People, as well as animals, are injured at circuses. In 1995, an elephant named Tyke charged through an audience in Honolulu after killing one circus employee and injuring another. Tyke was shot to death on a city street. In 1990, a chimpanzee abandoned his motorcycle act, rushed into the stands, and bit a child. In 1994, a baby elephant named Mickey was beaten during a performance. A month later, during another performance, Mickey attacked a child.
Myth #5: Circuses serve endangered species by educating children and adults.
Fact: Watching wild animals perform unnatural tricks outside their natural habitats doesn't teach people anything about the animals. By displaying bears as tricycle-riding buffoons and by dressing elephants in tutus, circuses present animals as creatures whose purpose is to amuse us.
What You Can Do about Circuses
1. Urge your local legislators to enact laws or ordinances protecting circus animals.
2. If your town is planning to host a circus, suggest an animal-free circus.
3. If a circus with wild animals is scheduled for your area, write letters of protest to the editors of local newspapers. Ask sponsors to withdraw their support. If this doesn't stop the circus, organize a protest and a press conference.
4. Report any animal abuse you see or hear of to the proper authorities and follow through with publicity. It is easier to enact a local ordinance or state law after a well-documented incident of abuse has occurred.
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