Circus Animals: Amusement or Abusement?
Is it fair to make animals perform for this? I touched on circus elephants before because they seem to get the most press of abusing. If you google "Ringling Bros. elephants", you will be first directed to the Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation home page. But scroll below and multiple websites, videos, and images of humans torturing elephants pop up. Animal rights groups have long battled circuses to ban live animal performances, chiefly elephants, but have extended to other animals. This post will attempt to see both sides between the long-powerful circus and the growing power of animal rights groups.
If you think about it, the circus industry is quite powerful. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the most powerful and influential American circus is owned by Feld Entertainment, a $1 billion company that also owns Disney on Ice and Monster Jam. That's not even including the other permanent and travelling circuses scattered across the United States. And circuses around the world are still traditional going strong, including the formidable Russian circuses that specialize in tiger and bear training. However, there have been steps in banning live animal entertainment, including Mexico who recently banned all live animal performances.
Animals have long been a source of entertainment under the big top. Circuses would have a travelling menagerie of which they exhibited beasts of all kings designed to dazzle the public. However, breakthroughs in animal training allowed animals to perform tricks. However, the circus had to be careful about which animals they chose. Some animals like the giraffe were too hard to train, others like chimpanzees had to be retired early, and rhinos and hippos proved to be difficult to transport and hard to procure. Circus animals had to be easily trainable, readily available, and easy to transport. Also, most importantly for circuses, animals that were loved by the public had to be chosen. Core animals like Asian elephants (African elephants proved to be more difficult to train), tigers, lions, horses, llamas, and dogs made up of most of the live animal entertainment, although leopards, bears, camels, pot-bellied pigs, kangaroos, orangutans, and chimpanzees were used to an lesser extent.
Okay, I'll start out with the bad things about live animal entertainment in circuses. Trust me, there's a lot to cover:
1. Animals should not be made to do silly tricks
The foremost argument for animals not to be in entertainment is that animals should not be forced to perform silly tricks in front of people. The circus disagrees, arguing that they exhibit animals performing natural behaviors. To an extent this is true, elephants can stand on their hinds legs (as can dogs, tigers, and lions) and horses can gallop in a circle. But they're definitely not "natural", as natural behaviors can be usually boring and the circus strives to be anything but boring. But the question most people ask is whether the animals are beaten to do tricks which leads us to:
2. Animals should not be beaten to perform tricks
Animal rights groups maintain that circus elephants (not to mention other animals) are beaten so that their morale is broken and the trainer can easily direct the animals without incident. The area around animal training is murky at this point. In the past, animals were beaten and abused so that they could perform without harm to the trainer. However, the circus argues that it only uses positive reinforcement to train their animals. It's hard to believe when abuse videos and pictures pop up all the time on the Internet.
3. Animals should not be confined in small cages
Most people can agree that animals should not be in cages. However, according to recent data, tigers and lions in circuses spend anywhere from 60%-90% of their time in small cages when not performing. When taking account that elephants are chained for long periods of time, horses and llamas tethered, and bears muzzled, not a lot going for them.
Ok, we've talked about the disadvantages of the circus. Most people would stop right there. But I believe there are two sides of every story, so I'll delve into the circus' arguments for live animal entertainment. For every accusation hurled at the circus, true or not, the circus has always retaliated with a big
1. We love them and they love us. We use only positive reinforcement in our training.
It's hard to believe that the animal trainers who dedicate their lives to training and caring for animals would abuse them mercilessly. It has happened in the past and their are still animal trainers out there who use negative reinforcement. But since then, the circus has come a long way in forgoing the traditional circus training tools of whips and muzzles, such as big cat trainer Alexander Lacey who uses two guides to communicate with his beloved cats. However, it's worth noting that the circus still uses bullhooks (they prefer to use the word "guide") in training their elephants.
2. We spend money on them. A LOT of money.
As Asian elephants are quite rare in the United States, Ringling Bros. is probably motivated to take care of their 48 strong herd, a multi-million dollar investment. With the construction of the $200 million Center for Elephant Conservation and many more millions poured into the research, breeding, and retirement facility for elephants, its doubtful the circus spent a lot of money just to poke them with sharp tools. The circus has also contributed a lot to research on elephants, something very valuable to research scientists.
3. We take great care of them.
Also a long argument for circuses, animal trainers spend almost all of their day caring for their animals and making sure they're comfortable. After all, abused and sick animals can't perform. Also a unique argument for the circus is that circus animals, unlike other animals, have a job to do. It's an interesting thing to consider, that the circus animals have something to strive for, something to do every day.
Well, that pretty much summarizes the circus animal debate raging across the United States. There are unfortunately two sides in this argument, either you believe that circus animals are abused or they are simply beautiful ambassadors in a not-ideal situation. What do you believe?
