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BREAKING: Ringling Brothers Circus Will Retire Its Elephants in May 2016.
Great news for elephants! Ringling Bros., the circus company, announced that it would retire its elephants by May 2016. That’s two years earlier than originally planned! Ringling announced in March of 2015 that they would phase out their elephant acts over the next three years, due to growing public concern and media attention regarding how the circus elephants are treated, but it looks like the change will come sooner than expected and that’s good news for everyone, especially the elephants.
Ringling Bros. has been under criticism from a host of animal welfare groups for the way it captures, breeds, and trains elephants. It is estimated that 50 percent of Asian elephants owned by the circus were captured from the wild, and at least 30 elephants have died in the circus since 1992. Further, though the circus has always called its elephant program a “conservation” effort, not one of the circus’s elephants will ever be fit to be released into the wild.
Whistleblowers such as former Ringling Bros. trainer, Sam Haddock have also come forward, detailing the deprivation, pain, and negative reinforcement used to train baby elephants, who are often taken from their mothers as early as 18 to 22 months of age. Wild elephants often live with their mothers until well into their adolescence, and female elephants stay with them for life. After experiencing the trauma of this separation, their lives are full of bull hooks, electric cattle prods, ropes and even fireplace pokers, which force them into unnatural positions and balances.
More than six American cities have banned the use of exotic animals in circuses including Los Angeles and Huntington Beach. Also, about a dozen countries have also eliminated or put in place bans to end these cruel acts. While public pressure has been mounting for circuses to end their animal acts, Ringling Bros. had been one of the biggest defenders of this kind of archaic animal exploitation. However, the latest news signals that even one of the most tough-minded and hardened companies that use animals now recognize that the world is changing, and it had to adapt. We hope that with more public pressure, Ringling Bros. will move toward ending all of its animal acts and retire them to sanctuaries where they can live free from harm.
To help the plight of other animals mistreated by the circus, you can start by boycotting circuses or other establishments that can’t provide adequate care to exotic or endangered animals. Another way to help is to spread the word. Share this article and encourage your friends to boycott circuses that use and exploit animals!
Nosey the Elephant Still Struggling to Walk in 2016!
This footage was taken by Amy Waz on January 9th 2016 at the USA Flea Market, Port Richey, Florida.
PLEASE SHARE & TAKE ACTION FOR NOSEY HERE:
AFNN on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1FrMBCs
AFNN Blog: http://rbl.ms/1FBs030
@ActforNosey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ActforNosey
You, the USDA, have received countless emails, videos, letters and telephone calls regarding the plight of this poor ailing elephant. 30+ years she has been performing and giving rides with the Liebels Family Circus aka Liebeling Brothers Circus aka The Great American Family Circus aka Florida State Family Circus.
You, the USDA, have cited over 200 times, the above-mentioned for their poor treatment and care of Nosey and other animals in their ownership.
Nosey (or by whatever of the above-mentioned names) suffers from severe arthritis, degenerative joint disease causing impaired limb movement. Her pain is exacerbated by the countless rides she gives before and after each performance. During her circus performances she is made to crawl across the ring on her “knees”. In her performances she is made to stand on hind legs performing various tricks and also carries members of the Liebel circus troupe via a swing hanging from her tusks. She is made to carry another member on her back, who performs acrobatic stunts on and from her back. Elephants’ spines grown upwards, not flat, so are not presented in a way to take the constant pressure of a chair or acrobatics performed over such.
As the USDA, are aware Dr. P. Ensley has already provided yourselves with his assessment of Nosey in March 2014 and this further assessment was sent to you in June 23, 2015 :
“Nosey is a crippled female African elephant sanctioned by USDA/APHIS to be kept in circus chains her entire life under the fear of the bull hook, guide or whatever you want to call it. USDA/APHIS must correct this longstanding injustice, stop their lip service, grant Nosey her freedom, take away the pain, and revoke their agency's permit which serves only to prolong her suffering." – Philip K. Ensley, DVM, Dipl. ACZM”
Nosey spends her time between venues in a rusty and unclean cramped trailer with tools and equipment behind and alongside her, restricting any possible movement. Her skin is visibly dry and cracked, especially noticeable on her forehead, when she is not wearing a headdress to cover it. She has an ongoing eye condition, again visible to those seeing her up close.
Nosey’s evident lameness is not just a reminder to us all how painful it is for her to continue performing and giving rides, but also a valid warning. When watching her falter, almost stumble, with people on her back, mainly children too... that they could easily, if she fell, be injured, maimed, crushed or even killed under her weight. This is a tragedy waiting to happen.
We are bringing to your attention that elephants in captive situations show the inherent bobbing and swaying aka “weaving” which is known as stereotypic behaviour. Wild elephants don’t develop this behaviour as they are constantly stimulated by their natural surroundings and life with the herd. This behaviour in captivity is born of stress, trauma, boredom, frustration and desolation and although prevalent in lone elephants, is also seen with groups of captives, as by being chained, they are unable to reach social stimuli in their group, i.e., touching and body movement. Once a captive elephant reaches the point of stereotypic behaviour, which again can be shown in swaying/weaving, bobbing, lifting and lowering legs, swaying of the trunk and circling of the head, they have literally reached the point of no return. It has been noted that Nosey is experiencing such motions and video evidence can be seen to prove such, especially over the last few months. It is known that although stereotypic behaviour isn’t directly harmful to Nosey, in the long term the continual rocking motion will be detrimental to her already arthritic joints and cause further pressure pain to the soles of her feet and her toenails.
We are signing this petition in the hope that you, the USDA, stand firm this year end, and revoke Hugo Liebel’s License to allow Nosey to continue performing and giving rides.
NOW is the time for her to retire and hopefully be given over to a sanctuary where she can see the remaining years of her life with her own kind.
Click Here To Help!
Urgent Petition: 23 Baby Elephants Will Die Unless The Chinese Government Steps In. Twenty-three baby elephants imported to China from Zimbabwe in July 2015 are being held in tiny cages at the Qingyuan Quarantine Facility in Guandong with only a tiny, barred, concrete slab as their exercise yard. To make it worse the elephants are unable to reach through the bars to reach a water pool.
Network for Animals has discovered that the elephants are destined for a new zoo being built in Qingyuan, a city in southern China, but the zoo will only be ready to take them in 2018, at the earliest. Until then the babies will be held in conditions so bad that they are unlikely to survive.
Network for Animals’ African director David Barritt has just returned from China where he tried to persuade Chinese authorities to provide better living conditions for the elephants. “The elephants are all sick and display serious wounds and other signs of being in poor condition,” said Barritt. “The chances of them surviving in these conditions are very poor. We have visual evidence that the elephants are crammed together in tiny cages and are allowed out for one or two hours a day into a barred concrete yard that gives them no room to exercise. These are appalling conditions that are deadly for their health and mental well-being. If disease and ill-treatment doesn’t kill them, the mental anguish they are enduring will.”
Mr Zhou Zhihua is Deputy Director of The Endangered Species Export and Import Management Control Department at the State Forestry Commission in Beijing. Join us now, and implore him to intervene in this matter. Otherwise these twenty-three baby elephants are destined to die, one by one.
Click Here To Help!
The unattended wounds on his feet have festered, he has foot rot and several wounds on his body!
In the last two years alone, 35 elephants have died due to over exploitation in the name of religious performance and manual labour!
This 54 old elephant must be send immediately to a sanctuary where his wounds can be treated properly!
Click Here To Help!
Help in freeing the elephant.
I would like to bring the condition of this elephant in the Image above to your notice.
I went on a vacation recently and during my visit to thekkady, kerala in India. I went for a katthakali dance show and found this elephant being abused there. He is used for joy rides all day long. He has to sit down for the riders to climb up on his back, then stand up and go on a walk. He has to repeat this procedure all day long hundreds of times.
We as humans have no right to use animals for our entertainment and money. They belong in the wild and that is where they should be left. How'd we feel if it were the opposite?
This elephant is being held captive at this address>> This elephant is at Mudra Cultural Centre, Lake Road, Thekkady | Thekkady, Thekkady 685509, India
Please help in freeing this lovely elephant. Please sign the petition and tweet to the accounts mentioned below and if possible also email them.
@petaindia | https://twitter.com/PetaIndia | info@petaindia.org| http://www.petaindia.com/
@pfaindia | https://twitter.com/pfaindia | http://www.peopleforanimalsindia.org/index.php | gandhim@nic.in, pplforanimals@nic.in
If you need any information, i have all the exact information. Just ask for it.
I tried to contact the kerala forest officials and peta india, but nothing really happened. Kerala forest officials ignored this even after me calling them over and over again and PETA India just sent me a link to a long list of concerned officials in kerala.
Please help stop illegal bloody poaching practices of African elephants for ivory!
Approximately 30,000 African elephants are killed each year for their tusks!
It is estimated that 70% of the African forest elephant population has been wiped out in the last 10 years!
Intervention is absolutely necessary at every stage of the ivory trade process! Anti-poaching patrols are needed to stop the supply and international cooperation as well as tight border control to stop the trafficking! Let us spread awareness of this crime to help people realize ivory tusks belong to the elephants and to them alone!
Petition to end the cruel treatment of elephants in India - by Save The Asian Elephants.
http://stae.org
Young elephants are snatched from their forest homes to supply tourist attractions, temples and festivals. Capture from the wild often entails slaughtering the mothers and other herd members who attempt to protect their young.
PAJAN – THE BRUTAL ‘BREAKING IN’ PROCESS
The captured calves are isolated and then forced into a pen and tied with ropes to prevent them moving. They are deprived of water, food and sleep. Terrified, they are brutally, often fatally, beaten with rods, chains or bullhooks (a rod with sharp metal hooks at the striking end) and stabbed with knives and nails. This practice – “pajan” – is designed to break their spirits and brutalise them into submission.
We respectfully urge:
Narendra Modi to end pajan and ensure the proper treatment of captive elephants. These magnificent creatures should either be released into the forests or kept in genuine sanctuaries.
David Cameron to urgently fulfil his Government’s Manifesto commitment to “support the Indian Government in its efforts to protect the Asian elephant”.
The Association of British Travel Agents to press its members to remove elephant attractions from their itinerary in India and the rest of Asia. Only visits to genuine sanctuaries and wildlife reserves where tourists observe elephants at a respectful distance (and do not ride them) should be permitted.
STAE asks for your signature to this petition as we need maximum visible support as we enter crucial meetings with the UK Foreign Office and the UK tourism industry.
See STAE's work featured in Mail on Sunday
16/08/15: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3199391/Tortured-tourists-Chained-spot-20-years-Beaten-submission-secret-jungle-training-camps-terrible-plight-Indian-elephants-LIZ-JONES.html and
23/08/15 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3207447/Your-roar-outrage-gentle-giants-MoS-readers-extraordinary-reaction-abused-elephants-story.html
http://stae.org
LETTER TO
Association of British Travel Agents ABTA. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India. The Rt Hon David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK.
Why Life in a Zoo is no Life for an Elephant. Few people can deny that there is something rather remarkable about the gentle giants of our world, the elephant. With slow and graceful movements, a kind glint in their eye, and a presence that simply oozes intelligence and wisdom, elephants are a very popular character in cultures all over the world.
Unfortunately, this does not shield these animals from being abused and even killed by humans. Each day, compassionate animal lovers work tirelessly to help protect Asian elephants that languish in circuses and their African cousins who face poachers. But is there more we can do for elephants? Should such large, far-roaming, intelligent creatures be confined in zoos and parks, or is there a different approach we can take to keep them safe and protected? Here are a few reasons why we should instead consider supporting these beautiful creatures in their natural environments rather than forcing them to languish in captivity.
There Isn’t Enough Space
Elephants are huge creatures, who are adapted for roaming large areas of land each day in search for food and water. They are used to roaming up to 50 miles a day, compared to the average enclosure space that is 500-square-meters per elephant, although these are viewed as guidelines it is not necessarily illegal to be smaller. While some people argue that the elephants are happy with this arrangement because they do not need to travel so far for food and water, the overwhelming evidence suggests that a lack of exercise is not only detrimental to the mental well-being of these animals, but harmful to their health, and even partly to blame for their early mortality in captive settings.
At least 40 percent of captive elephants are considered obese, a phenomenon that is never seen in the wild. Confined to such a small percentage of their natural territory, and often not presented with mentally stimulating challenges, or not enough, elephants have a tendency to do a lot of standing around and not much else. The weight issue is a big one – pardon the pun. The leading cause of death in captive elephants is foot ailments, and standing on concrete or hard ground for long periods of time takes a toll on their bodies enough, without the added stress of extra weight. In the wild, elephants are always on the move, active for up to 20 hours a day. This keeps them lean, keeps their bones strong and their joints supple, keeps them mentally engaged and promotes good blood flow, especially to their feet. They are also encountering a variety of surfaces and textures, all things that help to keep feet healthy.
It’s Incredibly Lonely
Elephants in the wild live in large herds, led by the eldest and most experienced female known as the matriarch. This social unit is the very core of life itself – everything they do, they do together, and they learn, teach, and adapt as one. They are so close-knit that the only thing that can tear an elephant away from her family and friends is the event of death, or capture. The more experienced elephants teach the younger ones, allowing them to pick up crucial skills such as how to care for a new baby, how to treat common ailments using plants, and general social skills such as how to behave within the herd, which can number as many as 100 individuals, of all ages and sexes. They communicate through a wide range of vocalizations and visual cues, but by far the most important sense to an elephant is touch. They have very sensitive skin, and delicate trunks, which they use much in the way we use our hands. An elephant will use the power of touch to not only discover the world around her but to bond with her herdmates. She will use her trunk to comfort others, to hug her baby, and even to gently and respectfully brush against the body of elephants who have passed away.
In captivity, over half of all elephants are kept in groups no bigger than four individuals, and some are kept entirely alone. These group sizes are unnaturally small and can result in abnormal behaviors among individuals. Elephants become unstable when forced into isolation, and their frustration reveals itself in a series of repetitive motions never witnessed in the wild, such as swaying from side to side for hours on end. For elephants who live entirely alone their existence is, even more, depressing, never able to seek out the social contact with their own kind that they so desperately seek. Captive elephants are also less experienced in terms of life skills, and one notable example of this is the incidence of first-time mothers killing their babies, often through neglect or inexperience.
Toys and other enrichment can be used to distract the animals and keep them occupied, but stereotypical behavior will still occur even if it is supplied. It seems to be a coping mechanism for captive elephants, a familiar habit, and they will continue to weave from side to side, sometimes being copied by other elephants and thus reinforcing the abnormal behavior. At least 60 percent of elephants show some form of abnormal behavior.
Our Weather Can Make Them Sick
All species of elephants come from hot countries, and they are therefore adapted to warm environments. They are unable to sweat, and therefore when the temperature rises they must cool themselves in other ways, such as wallowing in mud or spraying themselves with water. However, this is much easier to achieve than being too cold – they cannot store fat as insulation as a response to the colder temperatures and, therefore, must be kept warm by their handlers, such as through use of extra bedding or rugs. Due to their poor ability to regulate their body temperature, once an elephant is sufficiently chilled it takes a very long time for them to warm up again, especially their extremities, and this means that if not warmed in time damage can occur to their feet, tails, and ears.
To combat this problem, many zoos place their elephants indoors over the winter months in heated paddocks, but this confinement is frustrating to a roaming animal and results in increased stress and abnormal behaviors. Indoors they are unable to forage, to experience fresh air and natural sunlight, and interactions with other elephants are often restricted by placing them in separate stalls or enclosures.
How You Can Help
While wild elephants can live on average to age 75, the typical life expectancy among captive animals is only 20-30 years. The bottom line is that elephants do not do well in captivity, for all of the reasons mentioned above. If you love elephants, don’t visit them at the zoo. Zoos exist primarily for profit and can only exist with your financial support. Without ticket sales, zoos will no longer have the ability to hold these incredible in captivity. Opt to support sanctuaries that offer lifelong care to former captive elephants, or organizations that work on protecting our wild and captive elephants instead.
Featured image source: Debmonof3/Flickr
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