No Elephant at Shipshewana Flea Market After PETA Appeal

Venue to Receive Vegan Cookies in Thanks for Canceling Rides on Long-Suffering Animal

For Immediate Release:
July 7, 2016

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

After learning from PETA that notorious elephant exhibitor Hugo Liebel has a long history of animal-welfare violations—including making an elephant named Nosey perform despite suffering from lameness likely caused by arthritis—and putting the public at risk, Shipshewana Flea Market immediately canceled Liebel’s planned exhibition of Nosey, who was scheduled to give rides at the venue each Tuesday and Wednesday in July. In thanks, PETA is sending Shipshewana Trading Place, which hosts the flea market, a box of delicious vegan cookies.

“Shipshewana Flea Market’s compassionate decision to cancel Nosey’s appearances offers the ailing elephant a few days of much-needed respite while we continue to fight for her long-overdue freedom,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Rachel Mathews. “PETA urges families to take a stand against Nosey’s suffering by avoiding any business that exploits intelligent, sensitive elephants or any other wild animals.”

As noted by PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—Liebel’s history of animal neglect includes nearly 200 citations for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act, including chaining Nosey so tightly that she could barely move and repeatedly denying her adequate veterinary care. Recent video footage shows Nosey standing alone in a hot parking lot, confined to a cramped electrified enclosure without shelter, food, or water—and she’s often seen continuously rocking back and forth, a sign of suffering and distress that is never observed in the wild.

After reviewing 20 years’ worth of federal documents related to Nosey as well as a decade’s worth of photographs, an independent veterinarian and elephant expert called Nosey’s case “the worst, most prolonged, documented example of an uncorrected case of suffering and abuse in an elephant I have ever reviewed.”

PETA’s correspondence with Shipshewana Trading Place representatives is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.