Big Top Bullies! Mizpah Shrine to Face Uproar Over Circus Cruelty
For Immediate Release:
January 23, 2025
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Bearing signs reading, “Circuses Hurt Animals,” a cadre of PETA supporters and local animal allies from Ban Animal Circuses will converge outside the Mizpah Shrine Circus at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum on Friday to push for the Shrine to modernize by keeping animals out of its shows—just as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and other circuses are now doing.
“Cruelty takes center stage at the Mizpah Shrine Circus, where exploited animals are forced to perform confusing and demeaning tricks in front of screaming crowds,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on the Mizpah Shriners to get out of the dark ages and drop the animal acts, as numerous other Shrines have already done.”
Where: Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, 4000 Parnell Avenue, Fort Wayne
When: Friday, January 24, 6 p.m.
Why: In nature, elephants live in matriarchal herds, protect one another, and share mothering responsibilities for the herds’ babies. The Mizpah Shrine Circus is among the last remaining shows that still use wild animals, who are confined to small crates, kept in shackles, and deprived of any semblance of a natural life. Just last year, a trailer hauling animals for the Mizpah Shrine Circus caught fire on I-69 in Indiana, endangering lives and further traumatizing the animals who were likely already stressed from being crammed into trailers and hauled hundreds of miles from town to town.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
