Subject: RE: Circus Animals
Support My Vegan or Animal Rights Cause
posted by carrotloves1 on Saturday, June 19th 2010 @ 5:06 PM
From carrotloves member Lorraine
Posted Jun 16, 2010 @ 06:00 AM
To the editor:
I am deeply disappointed that the town of Plymouth is having Cole Brothers Circus perform in town. The South Shore Humane Society and many other organizations are opposed to this.
As more and more organizations and towns become aware of the risks to humans and the horrible life these wild animals endure, they are now adopting policies that will not hire animal acts. In Massachusetts alone, the towns of Braintree, Revere, Weymouth and Provincetown have restrictions on traveling animal acts. Many other states, and whole countries have banned animal acts.
Wildlife rehabilitators know that a wild animal in captivity is never truly happy. So much is this belief true, that we would rather euthanize an unreleasable animal than have it live the rest of its life in confinement.
It is impossible for elephants and other large wild animals to be humanely handled in traveling acts. Circus life is stressful to the animals. They do not get the exercise their bodies need for good health. (Did you know an elephant can walk 20 miles a day in the wild, and just a few hundred yards, from trailer to ring, in the circus?) Recently in the news, the public heard about the harsh training methods used on some baby elephants for their initial training. Basically, for wildlife, it is necessary to break their spirit, which takes much harsh treatment. Later in their lives many are victims of debilitating diseases brought on by a life of constant confinement and travel. Some captive wild animals eventually “snap” and try to run, often killing and or wounding the public. Remember what happened with Siegfried and Roy’s tiger they had for years?
What must we wait for before we stop having these traveling animal acts come to our towns? A child killed by an elephant who has “had enough?” Then have our children watch this same elephant gunned down in the street like what happened in Hawaii in 1994?
Using the circus as a fundraiser is hypocritical. While you may be making a few bucks for a “good” cause, you are teaching our children to treat wild animals as units, to be treated whatever way is the most profitable. Children have a natural empathy towards animals, and showing them that adults treat wild animals as if they have no individual needs causes them to become deadened to their own innate compassion. They will grow up not really caring for other creatures, but thinking of them as possible “things” to “use” for their own profit. Is this what we want our children to learn?
Visit the Born Free USA website at www.bornfreeusa.org if you want to learn more. Please avoid giving your money to the circus so they can continue keeping wild animals in confinement. It’s time the town officials of Plymouth open their eyes and put a stop to promoting bad lessons for children, and bad lives for wildlife.
Thank you.
Lorraine Nicotera,
vice president South Shore Humane Society
East Weymouth | 
