Lawyer From ‘Tiger King’ to Speak at Historical Society Meeting
PETA Lawyer Will Call On Board Members to End Elephant and Tiger Acts at Circus World
For Immediate Release:
May 1, 2020
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
When the Wisconsin Historical Society gathers for its virtual board meeting on Saturday, PETA lawyer Brittany Peet—who appears in the hit Netflix docuseries Tiger King—will urge the board members to stop hosting animal exhibitors at Circus World in Baraboo.
Peet will underscore Circus World’s connection to the sordid tiger cub–petting industry exposed in Tiger King. Circus World’s big-cat exhibitor, Ryan Easley, has obtained tigers from Tiger King‘s “Doc” Antle, who tears big-cat cubs away from their mothers shortly after birth, uses them as photo props, and—according to the docuseries subject, Joe “Exotic” Maldonado-Passage—gasses some of them to death when they grow too old for playtime events and incinerates their bodies in an on-site crematorium. Easley himself has been caught on video violently whipping tigers during training sessions.
“The last thing the Wisconsin Historical Society should want is to be associated with the sleaze and suffering exposed in Tiger King,” says Peet. “PETA is calling on the society to use the time that Circus World is closed to consider the wonderful human performers that it could feature instead of exploiting elephants, tigers, and other animals.”
Carson & Barnes Circus, the elephant exhibitor for Circus World, has racked up more than 100 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act—including one while at Circus World, where it was cited for failing to show that a thin elephant with visible hip bones and shoulder blades had been provided with veterinary care. Its head trainer was also caught instructing other trainers to sink a bullhook—a weapon that resembles a fireplace poker with a sharp hook on one end—into elephants’ flesh and twist it until they scream.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
