Notorious animal abuser Doug Terranova may not work for peanuts, but the $25,000 fine that he was recently slapped with by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act has to have put a dent in his bank account.

Terranova's Sordid History

PETA has been keeping tabs on Terranova—who rents animals to circuses, fairs, TV shows, and movies like Spy Kids 2 and Rushmore—for years and has filed multiple complaints about his careless handling of elephants and tigers.

In one incident, an elephant named Kamba, whom Terranova had rented to a circus in Oklahoma, escaped and ran onto the highway, where she was hit by a vehicle and sustained several injuries, including a fractured carpal bone, a broken tusk, and numerous abrasions. The USDA confiscated a tiger cub from Terranova after two other tiger cubs died in his care at the Iowa State Fair.

The USDA has stipulated that when Terranova's license comes up for renewal, it will be renewed only if he no longer owns, handles, or exhibits elephants. In the meantime, Terranova is still on the road and will be performing with the Shrine Circus.

How You Can Help Abused Animals

Boycott the Shrine Circus, and ask your local Shriners to stop sponsoring animal acts.

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.

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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.

When Ringling brought "The Cruelest Show on Earth" to Tampa Bay, Florida, this week, it was met with a hardy crowd of animal protection advocates—and a group that was a bit, well, shorter. Children showed up to protest Ringling with handmade signs depicting elephants who were beaten and proclaiming, "Kids Know Better."

Out of the mouths of babes—and into the minds of many. Help the awesome kids in your life get involved with PETA Kids.

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!

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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Update: Animal friend and philanthropist Bob Barker is paying the entire cost of shipping Toka, Thika, and Iringa from Toronto to the PAWS sanctuary in California.

The following was originally posted on November 25, 2011:

To thank the three members of the Toronto City Council who spearheaded the vote to send the three elephants at the Toronto Zoo to a sanctuary, we sent them each a box of vegan chocolates and a Compassionate Legislator Award certificate. The City Council voted 31 to 4 to allow Iringa, Toka, and Thika to leave the freezing Canadian winters behind and spend the rest of their days roaming with other retired elephants at California's spacious Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) sanctuary. 

Elephants in Canadian zoos—including Lucy, the lone elephant in the Edmonton Zoo—spend much of their time indoors since they cannot tolerate the winter cold and snow. They often suffer from arthritis and other painful ailments as a result of the lack of exercise and standing on hard surfaces for prolonged periods. While the compassionate city councillors recognized the need to send the three Toronto elephants to a sanctuary, zoo officials were battling to send Iringa, Toka, and Thika to another zoo. But last night the zoo voted to send the three elephants to PAWS. 

Please click here to send a polite email to the Toronto Zoo thanking them for their compassionate decision to send Iringa, Toka and Thika to the PAWS sanctuary. 

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Great news: After more than a year of pressure from PETA, the Animal Protection and Rescue League, Animal Defenders International (ADI), and celebrities—including Charo and Switched at Birth star Constance Marie—the Santa Ana Zoo in California has announced that it will discontinue cruel and dangerous elephant rides.

This is a big deal for the elephants, who are dominated and controlled by bullhooks—barbaric training devices that resemble a fireplace poker—as can be seen in video footage from ADI that shows that trainers from Have Trunk Will Travel, the company that provided elephant rides for the zoo, beat and shocked elephants into submission. When not working, the elephants spend much of their time chained by two legs, barely able to take a step forward or backward.

Elephants are highly intelligent, social, and curious animals who deserve better than being forced to plod along in circles all day while being prodded by a bullhook for people's amusement. Elephants who are subjected to the constant threat of physical punishment—like those who provided rides at the zoo—are also more prone to dangerous and unpredictable behavior and present an unnecessary safety risk to the public.

Please click here to send a thank-you note to Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido and click here to thank Gerardo Mouet, the executive director of the city's Parks, Recreation and Community Services Agency, for making the compassionate decision to end the elephant rides. Be sure to add a P.S. to Mr. Mouet to ask him to make the same decision for the Orange County Fair since Have Trunk Will Travel provides the rides there, too, and Mouet is on the fair's board.  

The record penalty paid by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for violations of federal animal welfare laws has so far made no difference for the lame and suffering elephants the circus forces to travel and perform for months at a time. So PETA has sent an urgent appeal to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking that the agency order a comprehensive, independent evaluation of the elephants and prohibit Ringling from taking elephants in distress on the road.

Accompanied by PETA's captive wildlife specialist, two veterinarians with decades of elephant experience attended multiple Ringing shows and expressed serious concerns about the health and well-being of eight elephants. One elephant was observed with an abscessed toenail (foot problems are the number one reason why elephants in the U.S. are euthanized), and another had diarrhea. 

While Siam, a 33-year-old, wild-caught Asian elephant, was lying down, a black hole consistent with an abscess was visible on her front left foot.

All eight displayed severely abnormal behaviors and have extensive scarring from being struck with bullhooks. Fifty-four-year-old elephants Aussan and Sarah have shown a dramatic decline in their physical condition during the past few months alone.

The experts also saw a zebra escape from an enclosure during a show and a tiger whose tail was caught in a cage door.

These elephants cannot wait while the USDA pats itself on the back for penalizing Ringling. Please click here to urge the USDA to take immediate enforcement action to get Aussan, Sarah, and all the other elephants suffering for Ringling off the road for good.

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.