PETA's Anti-Circus Baby Elephant Statue Comes to Columbia After All

Council Passes Resolution Requiring City to Help Group Find a Suitable Location for Sculpture--Just in Time for Ringling's Arrival

For Immediate Release:
January 19, 2010

Contact:
Kristie Phelps 757-622-7382

Columbia, S.C. -- It took an act of the City Council, but PETA's sad-elephant sculpture, "Ella PhantzPeril," has finally arrived in Columbia--just two weeks before the arrival of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The city originally denied PETA a permit for the statue, so a PETA representative appealed the denial before the City Council on January 6, arguing that the city was violating the group's free-speech rights. A resolution proposed by Mayor Bob Coble directing city officials to work with PETA to find a location for the statue passed unanimously. The sculpture will be displayed on the plaza adjacent to the convention center at the intersection of Lincoln and Senate streets today through January 31.
 
"We hope that people will take one look at the tears in this baby elephant's eyes and decide to stay away from Ringling and all other animal circuses that forcibly remove baby elephants from their loving mothers and put them in chains for life," says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. "Elephants in circuses are deprived of everything that is precious to them--including their freedom--and endure a lifetime of loneliness, beatings, and cheap tricks."

A PETA undercover investigation documented that Ringling routinely beats elephants with bullhooks backstage moments before performances. Also,
a former Ringling elephant handler recently gave PETA dozens of never-before-seen photos that show the violent training methods that the circus uses on baby elephants. The photos document that still-nursing baby elephants are captured rodeo-style and dragged away from their mothers. The babies scream and struggle frantically as they are wrestled, stretched out, forced to the ground, gouged with steel-tipped bullhooks, and shocked with electric prods.

Designed by renowned New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss, PETA's sad-elephant sculpture, "Ella PhantzPeril," depicts a shackled baby elephant and includes the inscription, "See Shackles, Bullhooks, Loneliness--All Under the Big Top."

For more information, please visit PETA's Web site RinglingBeatsAnimals.com.