Under the Big Top

Circuses and Roadside Shows

Big Top or Big Flop

The Life of a Circus Animal

Working Conditions

Other Considerations

--Animal Welfare Act

--Public Health Issues

--The “Educational” Experience

Roadside Shows

Take Action

Big Top or Big Flop                                                                  Back to Top

The circus has been around since ancient times. Meant to entertain, circuses often mean suffering, pain, fear, and degradation for the animals who are forced to perform day after day. Life is hard for the humans who choose to work in the circus. Life is inhumane for the nonhuman animals who have no choice.

When we idealize the circus in our childhood minds, we see the spectacle of the traditional elephant walk from the train depot to the circus site. What most of us never see, however, is how the animals are treated before they disembark, how they are kept confined, often drugged, and abused. We never see what it means for them to live a circus life.

If circuses are meant to be entertainment for the entire family, then should not those who perform in the circus enjoy the experience as well? If a performer has to be goaded into performing by being struck with a bullhook, whip, chain, electric prod, or other abusive device, then it does not seem as though that performer is really interested in his or her job.

The Life of a Circus Animal                                                     Back to Top

Remember, the animals we see performing in circuses are wild animals. Regardless of whether they were born in captivity or taken from the wild, they are wild animals. Therefore, we should not be surprised when they react violently to the unnatural environments and demands placed upon them as circus performers. Some of these animals wind up trampling their trainers or breaking through barriers and rampaging through towns. Who would not go berserk living the life of a circus animal?

Bears were not born to wear tutus, elephants to stand on barrels, chimpanzees to ride horses. These are all unnatural acts. Yet, when an animal rebels against performing these unnatural acts, he or she is often beaten, sometimes killed. And, sadly, another takes his or her place. The media tends to sensationalize and demonize the animal rather than report the underlying cause for such behavior—confinement and cruel treatment.

Put yourself, for a moment, in the place of a circus elephant. You were most likely born in captivity so you know no other life. Yet, your natural instincts, your species’ normal behaviors, are still part of your being. Normal behavior for you would include living in a close-knit social group headed by the matriarch, exploring your environment, playing, traveling miles a day, and caring for your young. Female calves stay with their mothers their entire lives and males upwards of 15 years—in the circus, calves are taken from their mothers at as young as one year. The only change of scenery you ever experience is when the circus moves to another town. Maybe then you are shackled on grass or asphalt instead of concrete. Regardless of where the circus travels, you are shackled—by not just one leg but three.

If you are a tiger, lion, chimpanzee, or bear, you are caged for the entire time you are a circus performer. Instead of roaming across the savannahs, jungles, or mountains of your native lands, you are in a cage. Sometimes that cage is barely large enough for you to turn around in. The only times you are allowed out of your cage are to be trained to perform and for your actual performance—jumping through hoops of fire, dancing on hind legs, having a human stick his or her head in your mouth. Otherwise you live a solitary, sedentary life.

Of course, if you were taken from the wild, you knew how to live the life of an elephant, tiger, lion, or other performing circus animal. You have been uprooted from your native land and from your family. Now you are forced to learn to live a life of abuse, degradation, deprivation, and despair.

Wild animals kept in captivity often develop neurotic behaviors known as stereotypies. A stereotypy is a repetitive movement often found in humans with autism and mental retardation. In nonhuman animals, behaviors, such as constant pacing, swaying back and forth, and self-mutilation, are considered stereotypies. These stereotypies often develop when the animals are in abnormal environments—typically when they are confined to small spaces. How more abnormal an environment can a circus tent be to an animal whose home is in the wild? How more abnormal is a cage in a transport truck?

Working Conditions                                                                  Back to Top

Typically, circuses operate 11 months of the year, taking December off. They offer performances once or twice daily and often three times a day on weekends, meaning the animals perform that frequently, too. The circus may stay in town for a couple weeks or maybe just a couple days. Therefore, circus animals are on the move constantly. The animal performers are often housed in inadequate and unsanitary trucks and railcars that can break down exposing the animals even further to environmental stress. For example, air conditioning breaking down in a trailer transporting polar bears in the South would cause extreme stress for the bears. The animals travel through all types of weather conditions regardless of their need for specific climates. Typically, they are fed and watered when it is convenient, and their waste material is cleaned out when there is time. No routine schedules can be created when the circus is constantly on the move.

To get the type of performance trainers know will “wow” the crowds, they most often use aversive techniques—beatings, shockings, and whippings. Bullhooks, in particular, are often used with elephants. Although elephants’ skin looks tough, there are sensitive areas behind their ears and on their feet. Elephant trainers will imbed the hook in these tender areas to get the animals to perform. Whips and chains are used on wild cats. Fire is something most animals fear and run away from. To force lions and tigers to jump through rings of fire, electric prods are used.

In most cases, there is little veterinary care given to these animals. Some trainers, often not well schooled in veterinary medicine, simply bandage animals’ wounds or in the worst case shoot them if they are too sick or injured to perform again. As with many traveling circuses, staff members are hired in towns where the circus performs. These individuals often have very little training around wild animals or have any knowledge in animal husbandry and care. To protect trainers and other circus personnel from injury, some animals have their teeth and claws removed to make them less dangerous. Some are given drugs to make them manageable.

What happens to those animals who are too old to continue working in circuses? Such animals sometimes wind up in roadside shows. These animals may spend their remaining years in cramped cages behind gas stations and at fair grounds. Some end up as targets in canned hunts. Others go to research laboratories. Only a lucky few are released to sanctuaries.

Other Considerations

Animal Welfare Act                                                                    Back to Top

The Animal Welfare Act (AWA), enforced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), establishes minimal standards for the care of certain animals performing in circuses and other exhibitions. However, there are no regulations governing the training sessions these animals endure in preparation for their performances.

The AWA does not prohibit trainers from using bullhooks, whips, electrical shock prods, and other devices on wild animals. Although the USDA issues citations when standards are violated, often little is done to protect the animals in the long run. There are not enough inspectors to check every circus in every town across the nation. Therefore, violations either go undetected or are not corrected when found.

Public Health Issues                                                                  Back to Top

As already mentioned, there is one major public health issue: animals who go berserk because of the stresses of living an unnatural life in an unnatural environment. Not only trainers and circus personnel are injured and killed by rampaging animals but also spectators and innocent bystanders when, for example, elephants run through city streets. But there are lesser known public health issues. For instance, elephants can carry a human strain of tuberculosis. Monkeys can also carry a human strain of tuberculosis as well as the herpes B virus. A few years ago, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a report on the emergence of zoonotic diseases (any infectious disease transmittable from nonhuman to human species), including the Norovirus, which can be transmitted by lions. According to the CDC report, 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic.

The “Educational” Experience                                                       Back to Top

Circus owners often maintain that through circuses, the general public is being educated in the importance of conserving wildlife. They suggest circuses give the average person a glimpse into the lives of wild animals. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The only glimpse we get of wild animals in circuses is of them performing the most unnatural acts—dancing, playing musical instruments, walking on their hind or fore legs. Circuses provide no connection to them in the wild. In fact, if anything, we objectify them in circuses. They lose their wildness and their natural tendencies to such an extent that we forget where they came from and what their lives should be like. Circuses do more harm to the idea of wildlife conservation than good. By turning animals into spectacles, circuses diminish these magnificent living, breathing, sentient beings.

Roadside Shows                                                                       Back to Top

There are many other shows, nationally and internationally, in which animals are forced to perform. Such shows include donkey basketball, dancing bears, bear wrestling, pigeon bowling, photo ops with tigers and other wild animals, horse diving, and more. Although less well known, these shows are equally cruel. And, in reality, animals in these venues may suffer more than animals in circuses, yet they have less legal protection.

In particular to international shows are the infamous “dancing bears” of Pakistan and India. A segment of disadvantaged people in these countries often tries to earn a living by training sloth bears to dance. To control these bears, a hole is drilled through the bears’ snouts to which a clamp and a rope are attached. The bears suffer chronic pain from these mutilations, all inflicted without pain medication. The bears are then kept in deplorable living conditions and are deprived of their natural lives. It is understandable and tempting to want to help these disadvantaged people by patronizing their shows; however, the money they receive is only a short-term respite to long-term suffering for both the people and the bears. If you find you want to help, please consider supporting government and nonprofit programs established in these countries to provide impoverished people other forms of sustainable living that do not involve animals as roadside entertainment.

Ultimately, when animals are exploited for entertainment purposes and economic gain, we must stop and ask ourselves, is this activity humane? If not, we should take action.

Take Action to Help End Animal Use in Circuses and Roadside Shows

What can you do to change what is happening to animals forced to perform in circuses and roadside shows? First, avoid supporting animal cruelty; do not attend or view these events. Other humane actions include:

• Educate your friends, family, and coworkers about the cruel nature inherent in forcing animals to perform in circuses and sideshows.
• Support human circuses, such as Cirque de Soleil, The New Pickle Family Circus, and Circus Oz, and encourage family and friends to attend.
• Write officials expressing your opposition if your community condones animal-based circuses.
• Lobby to ensure regulations are changed to protect animals performing in circuses and roadside shows; make sure those regulations are enforced.

October 2009                                                                                      Back to Top