PETA’s plight to stop elephants’ cruelty in circuses

 

 

Credit: circuses.com

This is a picture of the elephant sculpture that PETA wanted to install in Union Square Park

Circuses are seen as wonderful attractions – trapezes, clowns, jugglers, lions and elephants coming together to do amazing tricks beyond our wildest dreams. While circuses have a glamorous side, there is also a dirty side – cruelty to animals. According to a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) fact sheet “Circuses: Three Rings of Abuse,” it documents all the decrepit working conditions that animals, especially elephants are subject to including confinement to small spaces in cages while traveling across the country up to 11 months a year in the famous Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

For example, PETA’s fact sheet states, “physical punishment has always been the standard training method for animals in circuses. It is standard practice to beat, shock, and whip animals to make them perform—over and over again—tricks that make no sense to them.”

PETA submitted a proposal in March to the Parks Department for a permit to install a baby elephant sculpture for three-four weeks in Union Square Park in May or June 2007, in protest against the harsh treatment of circus animals.

In the April 12 Community Board 5 meeting, the board voted in denial of the proposal saying, “Community Board Five questions whether the sculpture should be considered art for it would not be reviewed by the Art Commission and appears more in the nature of a political billboard.”

On the decision, Bob Chorush, the Special Projects Coordinator for PETA’s Captive Animals and Entertainment Issues, reaction is, “It seems that Community Board 5 would prefer art with no message, since it cannot be rationally argued that Harry Bliss’ rejected elephant sculpture is a message with no art. The discussion of this work was heated and prolonged speaks to the impact, influence and feelings that this work of art evokes.”