When Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus brought the Cruelest Show on Earth to Norfolk, Virginia, where PETA is headquartered, we were waiting for it with a demonstration 75 people strong.
 

 
Why are we so riled at Ringling? Here are the top five reasons it's better to protest Ringling than to attend a performance:

1. Ringling tears families apart—ripping baby elephants away from their mothers to spend a lifetime in the circus—but protesting brings families together.
2. Four dead baby elephants—and counting. Babies Bertha, Kenny, Benjamin, and Riccardo have all died since 1992. Baby elephant Barack was recently pulled from the road when he became very sick with the stress-related and often fatal disease EEHV for the second time in his young life.
3. Ringling's "training" consists of beating elephants with steel-tipped bullhooks, sometimes until they're bloody. Handlers cover the wounds with a gray powder called "Wonder Dust." 
4. When they aren't being forced to perform, elephants are often chained inside filthy, poorly ventilated boxcars for 26 straight hours, on average, and sometimes for 60 to 70 and even 100 hours at a time while they're traveling.
5. And the best reason of all … you can perform the spectacular feat of caring. Anybody can do a belly flop into a net, but how many people can say they helped to protect animals from cruelty today?
    

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Just two weeks after young polar bear Knut died suddenly at the Berlin Zoo, a baby Indian elephant named Shaina Pali unexpectedly died early this morning at the zoo. A necropsy of the 6-year-old elephant showed she most likely died of a herpes virus. Elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus (EEHV) is a deadly disease that is common in young captive elephants.

Scientific research strongly suggests that young elephants are susceptible to EEHV because of the stress of captivity, including lack of space and unnatural surroundings (Ringling’s ailing “Baby Barack” has EEHV). The Washington Post explored the issue of how well zoos care for their animals and found that even zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) have woefully inadequate standards. For example, AZA-accredited zoos only have to provide elephants with a 40-foot-by-45-foot outdoor enclosure, can chain them for up to 12 hours a day, and may use bullhooks to strike them.
 

Nigel Swales/cc by 2.0

  
PETA has set up a True Friends Memorial page for Shaina Pali where you can sign the guest book in her honor or make a donation to support PETA's efforts to get elephants out of zoos.

 
Written by Michelle Sherrow