“It is essential to allow male calves to grow up with their mother in a matriarchal group structure.....
Failure to allow the young calves to learn the rules of the group can lead to aggression and injury of ... elephants, keepers and the public.”
—S.J.R. Adams, MRCVS,
Zoo and Wildlife Veterinary Advisor

Mickey was just 15 months old, a nursing baby, when he was taken from his mother, prodded into an arena and forced to perform confusing tricks for the King Royal Circus. Disoriented and frightened, Mickey couldn’t follow the trainer’s orders–so he was punished. During a performance in Oregon, as horrified circusgoers watched, Mickey was savagely beaten with a bullhook. The little elephant collapsed, screaming. Terrified and bleeding from his wounds, Mickey tried to crawl away, to escape the painful blows. But for captive elephants, there is no escape.

It’s an Elephant’s Life
Life would have been much different for Mickey without the circus. Instead of being beaten, he would have been comforted and caressed by his mother, sisters, and aunts. Male elephants stay with their mothers for 10 to 15 years; females stay with their mothers for life. Mothers teach their babies to cake themselves with mud to ward off sunburn, to avoid quicksand, and to eat what is healthy for them. Under the vast skies of their native lands, young males playfully wrestle each other and make mock charges. A young male elephant may hide in high grass, then “ambush” unsuspecting buffalo calves as they walk by, all in play.

In captivity, a mother elephant’s loving touch is replaced by bullhooks, chains and leg shackles, electric shocks, and intimidation. Males are torn from their mothers, sometimes when they’re only 6 months old, tied, and kept in isolation. Open plains are replaced with boxcars-used to transport animals from city to city in the blazing heat or freezing cold-or concrete barns surrounded by thick iron bars and multiton metal gates. Because of their massive size and strength-they can weigh 10,000to 20,000 pounds or more-male elephants may spend decades out of public view, immobilized by chains around their necks and legs.

A Burden on the System
Zoos and facilities like Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s “conservation” center breed elephants to ensure a supply of infants for their acts-but not every birth is welcomed. Male elephants may be crowd-pleasers when they’re babies, but they grow up to be extremely unpredictable, often aggressive animals who simply cannot be controlled.

Some facilities will do almost anything to get rid of them. Consider:

• In the wild, elephants can live 70 years or more; few captive male elephants alive today are older than 30.
• Since 1990, there have been an estimated 76 captive elephant births,
half male and half female. The females have experienced a 24% death rate, themales, 51%.
• Baby male elephants in Ringling Bros.’ care have drowned or collapsed after being forced to perform while ill (see sidebar). Other male babies have been reported as stillborn or have died of mysterious infections. Perhaps they’re the lucky ones.
• Vance, born in the wild in 1963, now spends his days chained by one leg inside a barn at Ringling’s Center for Elephant Conservation.
• Romeo, once a cash cow for Ringling Bros. when he toured the country with Juliet, is now a sperm bank. Too aggressive to travel, Romeo is confined to Ringling’s Florida breeding facility. He is reportedly allowed out on a scant half-acre during the day-in the wild, elephants may travel 25 miles a day-and kept alone in a small stall at night, a heavy chain around his neck.
• Hannibal was captured in South Africa when he was 4 years old and shipped to the Los Angeles Zoo. Eleven years later, zoo officials tried to send him to Mexico. He was sedated and loaded into a shipping crate, where he collapsed after an adverse reaction to the tranquilizers. Incredibly, zoo officials left him lying shackled in the crate all night, unable to stand and unattended. The next morning, Hannibal was dead.
• All male elephants in captivity are eventually sentenced to a life of solitary confinement.

Stop Tearing Families Apart!

Baby elephant Benjamin was touring in Texas with Ringling Bros. when he was allowed to enter a 12-foot-deep pond-despite the fact that he had been taken away from his mother before she could teach him to swim. As he tried to escape the pokes of Ringling’s bullhook-wielding handler, the terrified little elephant drowned. Ringling Bros. sent baby elephant Kenny on the road when he was barely 2-1/2 years old. Although Kenny was clearly sick when the circus toured Jacksonville, Florida, he was forced into the ring three times. Kenny died later that evening. Doc and Angelica were separated from their elephant mothers before they were even 2 years old, then tied with ropes so that Ringling could begin the process of breaking their spirits and forcing them to learn confusing tricks. As the babies struggled, the ropes burned lesions through the flesh of their legs. The USDA condemned Ringling, saying it caused “unnecessary trauma, behavioral stress, and physical harm and discomfort.” You Can Help • PETA has asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to keep elephant families together. While we want no elephants in captivity, at a minimum female elephants should be allowed to stay with their mothers for life as they would naturally, and males should not be taken away until they are 5 years old. Please write: Gary D. Frazer, Assistant Director Endangered Species Division U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Department of the Interior 1849 C St. N.W. Washington, DC 20240 • Never, ever pay to see any show that exploits animals. • Visit PETA's Web site Circuses.com.