Earlier this week, we posted undercover video footage taken by London-based Animal Defenders International showing a handler who used a pitchfork and a club to viciously beat an elephant named Annie. When confronted with the video, the elephant's owner, Bobby Roberts, wisely scrambled to save face by allowing Annie to retire from his "Super Circus" and spend the rest of her days at Longleat, an 80-acre drive-through safari park in Wiltshire, England.

 
Like most elephants in captivity, 58-year-old Annie suffers from painful arthritis, and her health was too poor for her to perform. Four years ago, PETA offered to pay for Roberts to visit The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, hoping that he would retire Annie there, but Roberts never responded to our offer. Unfortunately, it seems to have taken video footage of a vicious beating to prod him into action.

Meanwhile, PETA U.K. is still urging its members and supporters to e-mail the U.K. animal welfare minister and ask him to push through a bill prohibiting animals from being used in circuses. Here in the U.S., you can help elephants still suffering in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus by e-mailing the USDA and urging it to confiscate the Ringling's abused elephants.

 
Written by Michelle Sherrow

Undercover footage released by London-based Animal Defenders International shows an elephant handler with the "Super Circus" as he viciously kicks and beats a chained 58-year-old elephant named Annie with a pitchfork and a club. At one point, it appears that the elephant, who was taken from the wild as a child for a lifetime of servitude in the circus, is stabbed in the face with the tines of a pitchfork. Annie, who suffers from arthritis like most elephants in captivity, is the last elephant still used in a circus in Britain. The undercover footage also shows ponies and horses who jump backwards as they are kicked and slapped as well as a worker who spits in a camel's face. 
  

 
Four years ago, PETA offered to pay to send Super Circus' owner, Bobby Roberts, to visit The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. We hoped that once he saw the paradise that awaited Annie, he would relent and retire her to sanctuary. The heartless exploiter never responded.

PETA U.K. has contacted the RSPCA asking that Annie be confiscated from the circus, and the group is appealing to the British government to pass a pending bill that would ban the use of wild animals in U.K. circuses. 

While PETA U.K. fights for Annie, you can fight for elephants who are suffering right here in the U.S. Visit RinglingBeatsAnimals.com to learn more about the abuse of animals in circuses and what you can do to help stop it. Every one of those animals needs your help.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor