Controversial Artwork Spotlights Cruelty Under the Big Top

New York -- Depicting a chained and weeping baby elephant with the inscription "See Shackles, Bullhooks, Loneliness--All Under the Big Top," PETA's elephant sculpture will take up temporary residence in New York's Union Square Park over the objections of the local community board. The sculpture, known as "Ella PhantzPeril," was designed by New Yorker cover artist and cartoonist Harry Bliss and gained national celebrity when PETA sued the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities for not allowing Ella to be included in the capital's 2002 "Party Animals" display. PETA received the go-ahead to display Ella in Union Square Park from the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

Why is Ella crying? In order to force elephants and other wild animals to perform stressful and often painful acts, trainers use sharp metal bullhooks, whips, muzzles, chains, and electric prods. PETA has amassed thousands of documents showing that circuses--including Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and Cole Bros. Circus--are chronic violators of the minimum standards of the federal Animal Welfare Act. Animals in circuses are deprived of everything that's natural and important to them, routinely disciplined, and confined to dark, filthy trucks and boxcars during long journeys from town to town.