The Retort

ALL Advocates for Shriners to Bring Animal-Free Circus to Billings

April 19th, 2010 by Nicole Maas For The Retort

On April 7 and 10, All Lives with Liberty (ALL), MSU Billings’s student animal liberation group, staged demonstrations along the 1100 block of Broadwater Avenue—more specifically, just outside of the Shrine Auditorium inside which the Shrine Circus was preparing to perform. ALL waved signs that included such slogans as “Boycott the circus,” “Abolish slavery,” “Stop elephant abuse,” and “Explain the whips and chains to your children.” The stories, details and meanings behind these slogans? Let’s explore them as well as a few other facts you may not know about circuses in general and the Shrine Circus in particular.

According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): “Circuses and animal exhibitors performing for Shriners have been cited and fined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for failing to provide veterinary care, failure to provide minimum space, inadequate and unsafe enclosures, mishandling animals, endangering animals and the public, failure to provide shelter from inclement weather, failure to provide exercise, and failure to provide nutritious food and clean drinking water.” In 2004, a major Shriner supplier of elephants admitted to 19 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act and was subsequently fined $200,000. They were charged with “using physical abuse, causing harm and discomfort, failing to provide veterinary care, and unsafe public contact” (from PETA).

Undercover investigations and former employee testimony consistently reveal routine abuse to animals in circuses. According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), “former circus employees have reported seeing animals beaten, whipped, poked with sharp objects and even burned to force them to learn their routines. They are taught that if they do not obey the animal trainer, they will be abused physically.” Often these mediums are not even needed to gather such information; one need only turn her eyes to the bull hooks and whips carried—and used—by the trainers. Between shows, animals are kept in small, often dirty cages and shipped in all weathers from town to town. Imagine how exhausting and frightening that must be.

The Shrine Auditorium’s website describes the Shrine Circus as “a quality, fun-filled, family experience that brings a smile to children of all ages.” The following excerpt is from circuses.com:

“In 2001, a parent chaperoning schoolchildren to the Medinah Shrine Circus in Chicago reported that children were traumatized when they saw a trainer beating an elephant. She wrote to the local newspaper, ‘When the elephants were brought behind the curtain, the trainer began verbally abusing and hitting the elephant. We watched in horror as he swung a stick with all his force and struck the elephant in the back of the leg. This must have hurt because the elephant let out a scream that could be heard throughout the UIC Pavilion.’”

Instances such as the above are by no means isolated, and children are incredibly sensitive to the suffering of animals. I recall feeling extremely shocked and distressed at the look of exhaustion, depression and hopelessness in the eyes of a Shrine Circus elephant while attending a show as a young adult. I never gave so much as another penny to the Shrine Circus.

Elephants and other animals used by humans for “entertainment” have on many occasions snapped and gone on the rampage, killing and injuring human bystanders, sometimes ending in the animals being shot to death. The recent Sea World debacle involving the death of a trainer by an orca whale demonstrates that animals kept in captivity and forced to perform tricks that are unnatural to their species is unsafe as well as unethical. There are many documented instances of animals in circuses injuring or killing trainers, audience members and other human bystanders. Public skepticism and criticism in regards to the wisdom of animal-based “entertainment” has grown exponentially in recent years and is not predicted to decrease.

Some of the most successful charities around the world use non-animal-based entertainment to raise money and support for their causes. Cirque du Soleil, Bindlestiff Family Cirkus and Circus Finelli are three such providers of non-animal-based entertainment. For a list of others, visit Animal-Free Circuses factsheet.

The contradictory message the Shriners send by funding philanthropic efforts for the benefit of children through an event that intrinsically involves cruel animal abuse and exploitation, an event with behind-the-scenes details that would emotionally and psychologically traumatize the very children the Shriners seek to aid, is not only bizarre, it is inexcusable. Next year when the circus comes to town, let’s show them just how inexcusable it is by not patronizing their shows and by urging our friends and family not to attend shows either. If you do go to the circus, make sure you’re on the sidewalk with ALL, protesting!