Written by Jeff Mackey
The, um, cheeky comedy stylings of Doug Stanhope may cause the oh-so-proper "ladies who lunch" crowd to suffer a fit of the vapors. But for the irreverent folks out there, Doug's point of view will be quite refreshing (check out his latest release on iTunes 'til you can catch him live), especially when it comes to matters involving animals.
Recently, Doug sat down to talk with PETA about the ridiculousness of "working animals" at SeaWorld and in circuses, the idiocy of fur-wearers, and his adopted animal companions. Enjoy!
Written by Michelle Kretzer
Animal advocates' voices are being heard loud and clear today, as PETA and eight other animal protection organizations have joined forces to keep Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from taking "The Cruelest Show on Earth" abroad—including to Mexico, where animal protection laws are virtually never enforced.
Ringling applied to export and re-import endangered Asian elephants and tigers based on an Endangered Species Act (ESA) exemption that permits transporting the animals for the purpose of enhancing the species' survival. But animal rights groups from the U.S. and Mexico are calling on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to deny the application because the only thing Ringling wants to enhance is its bank account. Not only does dragging endangered animals across the border and beating them in order to force them to perform not qualify for this ESA exemption, it also flies in the face of what the ESA was designed to do: protect animals.
Ringling just paid the highest penalty in circus history for its animal abuse—$270,000 for violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). In the last few years, Ringling has racked up more than 50 violations of the AWA involving the care of big cats and Asian elephants. In fact, Ringling's own documents admit what PETA's investigation found: that its handlers beat elephants bloody with bullhooks.
But in the past, when the circus has gone to Mexico—where Ringling is exempt from even the minimal oversight that it receives in the U.S.—animal abuse has gone unrestrained. A Ringling handler was caught on video whipping a baby elephant in the face, causing the baby to screech and recoil. Handlers forcefully jabbed elephants with bullhooks all over their bodies, including inside their tender mouths and ears, and one handler was seen shocking an elephant with an electric prod.
PETA will continue to fight to keep Ringling's animals on American soil, where they have at least some protection. Meanwhile, please urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture to seize Ringling's ailing elephants and retire them to sanctuaries.
You might recall that last fall, PETA convinced Simon Property Group, the largest real estate company in the country, to ban exotic-animal exhibits at all its properties. At one mall that Simon owns in Winchester, Virginia, Cole Bros. Circus makes an annual appearance during the city's Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival, which means that Cole Bros. would have to skip this city altogether or use only human performers in its show—no animals whatsoever.
Marion Doss|cc by 2.0
To our surprise, that is just what the circus is doing! The Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival announced that Cole Bros. had created "a new-concept circus in 2012 entitled 'Circus of the Stars' that they feel will be just as dazzling and just as amazing as previous circuses." I'm of the opinion that seeing a circus replete with daring and funny human performers would be considerably more exciting than watching frightened, abused animals forced to do silly tricks.
Cole Bros. has a long history of repeatedly violating the Animal Welfare Act and recently incurred a $15,000 fine after PETA filed two complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding the physical safety and psychological well-being of two of its elephants. It was also forced to pay $150,000 for illegally selling endangered elephants to someone wholly unable to provide them with proper care, in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
But this humans-only circus is a great start toward making Cole Bros.' abuse of animals a thing of the past, and PETA will continue working to have venues host only the circus's animal-free performances.
When the Liebel Family Circus planned on doing a series of shows at National Guard armories in Arkansas, it didn't plan on PETA. We wrote to Major General William D. Wofford of the Arkansas National Guard and let him know that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently formally charged the circus's owner, Hugo Liebel, with almost three dozen violations of the Animal Welfare Act. The National Guard wisely decided not to associate itself with cruelty to animals and canceled scheduled performances in four cities.
Hugo Liebel has a long history of animal abuse. His most recent USDA charges include repeated failure to provide adequate veterinary care to Nosey, the poor old elephant he uses in his shows, who has been suffering from a chronic skin condition and unexplained rapid weight loss, among other ailments. The USDA complaint against Liebel also includes multiple charges for illegally chaining Nosey by two legs so tightly that she could neither lie down nor take more than a single step in any direction. Liebel also faces charges for allowing a spider monkey to escape and not recapturing him for nearly six weeks and for chaining a spider monkey to a pony for more than an hour.
An affidavit from a circus employee recounts Liebel's affinity for bullhooks and electric prods and details one incident in which Nosey was staked by all four legs and beaten with a bullhook by Liebel. Liebel also instructed other workers to beat her with objects such as shovel handles and sledge hammers.
Ideally, all circus performances using captive animals would become a history-book horror story. But in the meantime, Congress is considering the Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act, which would require vast improvements for animals used in circuses. Please take a moment to urge your representatives to pass this historic piece of legislation. Then get everyone you know to do the same, for sake of elephants and tigers.
Written by Jennifer OConnor
It took a PETA lawsuit to compel the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) to change course, but after three decades of secretly and illegally issuing hundreds of Endangered Species Act (ESA) permits to circuses, roadside zoos, and other animal exploiters, the FWS will change its ways.
The permits—called "captive-bred wildlife (CBW) permits"—previously allowed animal exhibitors like the notorious Ringling Bros. circus and Have Trunk Will Travel to harm and harass captive-bred endangered animals like Asian elephants without any public scrutiny or comments on their plans. Now, anytime circuses and operators of traveling and roadside displays want to "take" an endangered species (which includes harming, harassing, and wounding them to force them to perform in shows), they will be subjected to public scrutiny and forced to adhere to ESA requirements.
An example of how all this can help animals harkens back to one of PETA's earliest exposés—this one involving Las Vegas "entertainer" Bobby Berosini, whose CBW permit was suspended (and his show closed) after PETA revealed that he had viciously beaten the orangutans used in his tawdry act.
Ringling Bros. circus has a pending CBW permit application that would allow it to take endangered elephants and leopards, so please click here to voice your objections to the FWS right now.
The town of Molins de Rei has joined more than 60 other Spanish cities that have enacted bans against circuses that use animals.
Our colleagues at Asociación Animalista Libera received overwhelming support from city officials after pointing out that animals in circuses live in cramped cages and are beaten with bullhooks and whips in order to force them to obey. The ban includes all exhibitors that use wild animals.
Contact PETA's Action Team to get a campaign to ban animal acts underway in your own town.
Update: After a PETA staffer swore out a complaint against Henry Hampton, Lazy 5's owner, Hampton finally made arrangements to trim two giraffes' painfully overgrown hooves. Because he delayed the critical procedure and caused one giraffe to suffer for more than a year, PETA is calling for prosecutors to pursue cruelty-to-animals charges against him. However, PETA is open to dropping the charges if Hampton promises the court that he'll adhere to a continual regimen of appropriate hoof care.
The following was originally posted December, 14, 2011.
North Carolina's Lazy 5 Ranch should be the last place that schools take children on field trips, unless the trip is meant to teach children about how cruelly animals are treated in roadside zoos. But visiting Lazy 5 is exactly what some local schools are doing.
In the last year and a half, federal authorities have cited Lazy 5 for 21 violations of animal welfare laws, and the feds have also opened a formal investigation into the roadside zoo. One giraffe's hooves are so overgrown that she has to walk on her heels. She has suffered this painful, debilitating condition for more than a year.
The zoo has also been cited for leaving a deer to languish with a hernia for more than a month after euthanasia was recommended, failing to properly care for a deer with a large wound that was infested with flies, failing to shear sheep who were left panting in heavy fleece in 86-degree weather, and allowing dangerous, unsupervised public contact with animals. The list goes on and on, and PETA is appealing to all local schools to stay away.
If your local school takes children on field trips to the zoo or circus, click here for tips on reaching out to your principal to get these cruel field trips off the list.
After being used by a circus in Chile for nearly six decades, Ramba, a female elephant who spent her off-hours living in a parking lot, has been transferred to a safari park, thanks to the efforts of local residents who fought for her release. Ramba is being treated by an elephant specialist in hopes that she can be made healthy enough eventually to be transferred to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. But even if she's not up to the trip, Ramba's days of performing stupid tricks are over.
The lame and sick elephants traveling with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus also deserve a happy ending.
Click here to urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture to follow up on the record fine that it imposed on Ringling by seizing the circus's worn-out and ailing elephants.
Animals have voices. They cry out when they are being skinned alive for their fur, being beaten and forced to perform painful tricks, or having their throats cut before being hacked apart for their flesh. Animals express their pain, but often, people don't understand or they choose not to listen.
As animal advocates, we must raise our voices alongside animals' and put into words what they can't. Whether we are calmly explaining to someone at the dog park that his or her dog might be yelping because the animal's prong collar hurts or telling a friend that her mascara was smeared into a bunny's sensitive eyes, we have to speak up. Animals need us to.
If you haven't yet made a New Year's resolution, how about this: Never remain silent when an animal is hurting. Just one small voice can—and often does—save animals from cruelty and abuse. How will you use yours?
Has anyone ever told you that ending animal abuse is your middle name? Meet a man for whom fighting cruelty is his first, middle, and last name. PETA Foundation staffer Dan Carron has legally changed his name to CircusesHurtAnimals.com. As he admired his new driver's license, we asked him what he thinks life will be like as a website.
Whose reaction are you most looking forward to? Perhaps restaurant hosts who call out, "CircusesHurtAnimals.com, party of four"?What a great reason to eat out more! Yes, I think daily run-ins with people will be the most interesting. I use a debit card a lot, so I will be signing CircusesHurtAnimals.com for people constantly.
What does your mom think about your name change?My mom always encouraged me to speak out against all forms of cruelty, and when she learned about the abuse involved with circuses, she was happy to have a son named CircusesHurtAnimals.com—although she still calls me Danny.
Do you think that you will get much bigger birthday cakes now?That was part of the plan!
What is your ultimate goal with changing your name?I want to use every chance I get to tell people why they should boycott circuses that use animals. After people have visited CircusesHurtAnimals.com and have seen the elephants chained for up to 100 straight hours and have seen the baby elephants who were torn away from their families and beaten bloody with bullhooks, I think they will stop supporting this abuse.
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Ready to join CircusesHurtAnimals.com in slamming the circus? Get started right now with PETA's addictive new iPhone game, Circus Slam!
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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