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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.

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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.

*****

Ready to join CircusesHurtAnimals.com in slamming the circus? Get started right now with PETA's addictive new iPhone game, Circus Slam!

PETA has sent Compassionate Legislator Awards to members of the Margate, Florida, City Commission for unanimously voting to ban bullhooks, electric prods, and other cruel devices specifically designed to inflict pain on animals. The move means that the Cole Bros. Circus, which has visited Margate in the past and whose handlers have been caught on tape beating elephants with bullhooks, should be barred from bringing elephants into the city in the future.

The sharp metal hook and tip on the end of a bullhook can rip elephants' skin and leave bloody wounds and abscesses. The tricks that animals in circuses and traveling shows are forced to perform go against their natural instincts, which is why handlers must beat them into submission. When not performing, animals in circuses spend most of their lives caged or chained in trailers and railroad boxcars while traveling from city to city.

Cities and counties all across the country have enacted bans or restrictions against shows that hurt and exploit animals. You can help by contacting your own local officials to ask them to initiate proceedings to do the same. E-mail our Action Team for help getting started.

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On the heels of the record $270,000 penalty paid by Feld Entertainment—the parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus—PETA is renewing our call for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to deny the company's application to import eight tigers and a leopard in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The ESA prohibits importing endangered species except for "scientific purposes" or to benefit the survival of the species. It's beyond a stretch for the circus to claim that it's helping tigers by jamming them into tiny cages and whipping them into submission. Many of the violations that Ringling paid a penalty to settle involved big cats, including a tiger who suffered a laceration after her tail was slammed in a cage door and a lion who died of heat exhaustion in a sweltering boxcar while crossing the Mojave Desert.

The FWS has a duty to protect animals from harm and should not cave in to the demands of an influential corporation that just agreed to pay a huge fine for alleged violations of federal law.

Following reports of chronic neglect of elephants held by Florida-based exhibitor Jorge Barreda, who uses elephants for rides and rents them out to circuses like UniverSoul, PETA is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to confiscate the elephants and relocate them to a sanctuary so that they can receive the treatment that they urgently need. USDA inspection reports dating back to April indicate that Barreda has repeatedly failed to provide vital care for the elephants' feet, which can lead to serious, and even fatal, abscesses, infections, osteomyelitis, and other problems.

Foot problems are extremely serious—they are the number one cause of premature death in captive elephants in the U.S., who are forced to stand for long hours on hard surfaces instead of walking for up to 30 miles a day as they would in the wild. Despite the necessity of foot care, circuses and other animal exhibitors often neglect this critical aspect of elephants' health.  

Please avoid all circuses that use elephants and other animals and urge your family and friends to do the same. Click here for a list of animal-free circuses.

Feld Entertainment, the parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, must now pay the largest settlement of its kind in U.S. history―$270,000―for violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) dating back to 2007.

PETA has been after the USDA all this time to take action against Ringling for abusing the animals in its care. In recent meetings, we presented unequivocal evidence of animal abuse, including beatings, the death of a lion, lame elephants forced to perform despite chronic pain, and a baby elephant who died during a training routine. We had recently filed a new formal request for action against Ringling, and our attorneys had met with the USDA's general counsel and urged her to begin enforcement proceedings.

PETA presented testimonial and photographic evidence that baby elephants at Ringling's training compound are torn away from their mothers and subjected to violent training sessions so that they will learn how to perform tricks, as well as video footage from a PETA investigation showing how elephants used by Ringling are whipped, beaten, and yanked by heavy, sharp steel-tipped bullhooks behind the scenes, prior to performing. 

In addition to receiving the largest civil penalty ever assessed against an exhibitor under the AWA, Ringling must now provide all employees who handle animals with training and hire a staff member dedicated to AWA compliance. We will see how that goes.

This is a great start, but no one should forget that elephants and other animals pay the price every time anyone buys a ticket to the circus. Ask all the parents you know not to take their children to this cruel show, and explain why or show them this blog.

Please click here to thank the USDA for taking action against Ringling for its abuse of animals, and urge officials to go a step further and confiscate the circus' sick and ailing elephants. 

Written by Jennifer O'Connor