Come None, Come All!
I'm finally getting to talk about this after a few weeks, and I'm really excited. In my upcoming profile on animal lover Gary Yourofsky, I talk about how his father was a circus worker, and Yourofsky's first experience of animal cruelty was seeing the elephants behind the scenes being chained and mistreated. This got me thinking about the huge victory that animal activists everywhere had when the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey was finally shut down. This has spread a sort of movement throughout the animal entertainment world. In fact, Bucharest, Romania has banned animal circuses altogether.
People with fond childhood memories of going to the circus with their family might be shedding a tear or two, but let me take this time to tell you that those tears are in vain. There is no reason that circuses that mistreat their animals should be in business, and lawmakers and cruelty-free advocates alike are coming to see the horrific events that take place behind the scenes of the family fun. However, not all news portrayals of this event are inherently positive, and that's where I take issue. Yes, it is sad that a long-time business will no longer be continuing, but in PETA's and others' defense, they were given many notices and chances to improve their practices and treatments of the animals. Unfortunately, they didn't do enough in the time they were given. CNN recently wrote an article about the Ringing Bros., but the coverage seemed skewed to illicit pity from the readers, and made animal rights activists seem like overzealous try-hards that were set on destroying a business:
For years, the elephants have been in the spotlight and their dance routines featured prominently in the shows.But due to mounting criticism from animal rights groups, the Ringling Bros. phased out the elephant acts entirely. Off stage, the Ringling Bros. runs an elephant conservation center which sits on 200 acre of rural land in Florida, between Tampa and Orlando. Created in 1995 by Ringling, the facility focuses on the care and study of Asian elephants -- an endangered species that it had used in its shows. But several animal rights groups repeatedly criticized, picketed and sued Ringling Bros. for its treatment of the animals. The animal rights group, PETA, spent years petitioning against the treatment of circus animals.
What really bothers me is the fact that the reporters, Tony Marco and Azadeh Ansari, bring up the fact of the elephant conservation site as a redeeming factor instead of a blatant sign of hypocrisy on the part of the Feld family. They even say that Asian elephants are "an endangered species," meaning that they should be protected and cared for by professionals. Instead, the Ringing Bros. made their money carting these elephants around a country that they are NOT indigenous to, doing stunts that are, as the CEO of the Humane Society states, "coercive" and "silly."
Why does it make it okay for them to mistreat animals if they treat other animals well? If a parent abuses one child but takes good care of the other child, I doubt that he will be given a pass in a court of law. These animal rights activists are doing what they deemed necessary to save an endangered species. It was proven that they were mistreating the elephants by the fact that they ceased to use them, and even paid the fine that they were issued. However, Ansari and Marco still reported the abuse as "alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act."
Yeah...
"Alleged."
The important thing, is that these animals are free, I hope that other smaller circuses will follow suit. We don't need to mistreat and humiliate animals in order to get entertainment, and I will definitely be covering this issue taking place in other mediums, like the big screen, in upcoming posts. I think we've all heard about the controversy of A Dog's Purpose. But, that's for another post. For now, let's just celebrate this victory for the elephants.