Just say NO to the circus and say yes to elephants.

At home from work sick today and I managed to make myself even more sick. Although I feel much much better I found a documentary narrated by Lily Tomlin called An Apology to Elephants. I cried as I watched how baby elephants were taken from their families, knowing how family oriented these majestic creatures are it was utterly heartbreaking. The male elephants in a natural habitat stay with their mothers until they are about 14, however the female elephants stay with their mothers their entire lives. Unless they are stolen from their families and shipped to buyers for the circus and as long as people are buying tickets to the circus these and all the other animals will continue to be abused. I beg you to all to stop going to the circus.

I vow to NEVER attend a circus again. I can not believe the horrible tactics the trainers use to get these poor gentle giants to do the circus tricks. They should not be called trainers, they should be called abusers. They use bull hooks, ropes, chains, beatings and fear to get the elephants to those head stands, balancing tricks and all the other tricks they do in a circus setting. It breaks my heart to see such abuse.

The abuse, as you would imagine causes psychological damage to these gentle giants turning them into agressive confused tormented souls. On occasion when a "trainer" accidently drops their bull hook, the elephants see that as an opportunity. Once that weapon is on the ground the elephants have been known to attack and kill the "trainers". I believe it's a justified killing. Those "trainers" torture those poor elephants. Stabbing them in very sensitive areas to push them away or make them walk and using the hook end of the bull hook to pull them in the direction they want them to go.

It is not just the "training" that is so awful and abusive, it is also the conditions in which the elephants have to live in captivity. It is not living at all, merely existing when an elephant is chained in one place without the ability to socialize, lay down or walk around. In a natural environment, elephants must walk hundreds of miles sometimes to get food and water and that is what their bodies are made for, not standing chained in one place for 19-26 hours and even more when being transported from one location to another. Sometimes 60-100 hours. That is awful. Most of the time they are standing in their own urine and excrement for those hours causing horrible sores and disease of their feet.

What have I really learned from watching this documentary? Well, I'll tell you, besides the fact that I don't really want to go to the circus any more because I am horrified by the way animals are treated in that environment, I have also learned that I don't really like the way I feel when I watch such horrible things. I wasn't going to the circus anyway, but perhaps this blog will be read by someone that doesn't know how horribly animals are treated in the circus and it will inspire them to forgo and future circus attendance. Before long the demand for such performances will diminish to the point that it won't be profitable enough to have a circus anymore. I only hope that it happens before the elephants become extinct.