Circus Barkers : Treatment of Performing Animals Called ‘Cruel’

The circus trainer donned a costume of sequins and red velvet, while assistants made sure his prancing horses and mighty elephants had on their plumed headdresses and multicolored capes. “The Greatest Show on Earth” was back in town.

But this centuries-old tradition, which relies on the ageless appeal of performing animals, has run headlong into a 20th-Century phenomenon: animal activism.

As crowds streamed into the Los Angeles Sports Arena last week for the opening of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s 13-day run, the activists delivered their message in a silent vigil. “The Cruelest Show on Earth,” declared signs held aloft by the protesters. Some handed out leaflets denouncing the use of captive animals “as jesters for human entertainment.”

Nearby, Cleveland Amory, who heads the New York-based Fund for Animals, talked of a new age when animals will no longer be exhibited “doing stupid tricks.” Then he sounded the theme of the assemblage: “To me the circus is a relic of a barbaric age, an anachronism. This doesn’t send the message children should have, about saving animals in the wild.”

The Los Angeles protests are the latest in a burgeoning nationwide movement aimed at more tightly regulating the care and treatment of animals and limiting their use in entertainment.

Circuses have joined a target list which in recent years has come to include laboratory animal testing, the wearing of fur coats, sport hunting, puppy mills, the treatment of horses and calves in rodeos and what critics contend is the inhumane raising of veal calves in small crates.

The circus protests have been gaining momentum in the last few years. Protesters showed up at recent Ringling Bros. performances in San Diego, Anaheim and Long Beach, and trailed various Circus Vargas shows earlier this summer in the Bay Area and Sacramento. Protests also have been staged in Phoenix, Washington and Atlantic City.

Florence Lambert, who organized the Los Angeles protests, said the activists plan to pursue an aggressive agenda.

“We’re going to make a campaign in California, follow them all over the state to educate the public,” she said. Lambert, of La Jolla, founded Elephant Alliance two years ago to address the treatment of elephants in captivity following the controversial beating of an elephant, Dunda, at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Like other animal activists, Lambert cites what she calls the “brutal discipline” and “the unnatural and abnormal existence” that she says circus animals are forced to endure while on the road and backstage between performances. Specifically, these activists have focused on the chaining or caging of animals in confined spaces and the stress on animals from constant traveling from town to town.

Lambert argues that animals sometimes are beaten with bull hooks, the steel rod-like instruments carried by handlers.

In response, Ringling Bros. issued a statement denying the charges of abuse. The statement noted that the circus is regularly inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and that it began a daily program of care and established standards for animal welfare “before it became a fashionable cause.”

A spokesman for the Agriculture Department said Ringling Bros. has met government requirements for the provision of adequate food, water and housing. The spokesman said the only recent complaint against the circus, lodged in Phoenix, accused it of keeping animals in the heat. The charge, however, was not corroborated by an inspector, the official said.

“No matter what we did, it would not be enough,” Cathy Walkes, Ringling Bros. national public relations director, said of the circus critics. She added: “They object in principle to animals in entertainment. It comes down to an argument we’re reluctant to get involved in, because it’s philosophy.”

Walkes attributed the protests to “a small group of activists” and said they have had no impact on circus attendance. Ringling estimates attendance has grown about 12% a year for the last five years, to more than 12 million in 1989.

Neither the anti-circus activists nor the Agriculture Department could provide statistics on abuse or animal injuries for the 1,475 animal exhibitors performing around the country. Both activists and humane organizations, however, say the federal Animal Welfare Act, which governs all animal exhibitors in the United States, sets only minimum standards for care and handling, and does not involve itself in issues such as how much the animals travel.

John Duncan, public affairs director for USDA’s Animal and Plant Inspection Service, conceded that the department’s role is limited. Inspectors will “look for signs of mishandling” during quarterly visits, he said, but added: “The way they train these animals we don’t get involved with. We don’t tell them how to train or control their animals.”

At the Sports Arena one day last week, Ringling Bros.’ new animal trainer, Flavio Togni, greeted the subject with a mixture of incredulity and resignation. The Italian performer had encountered similar protests in Europe before he joined Ringling Bros. this year.

“I’m born in a circus family,” he said. “All of my family grew up with the animals. It’s like when you have a pet dog or cat. They are not props.”

Togni’s acts include elephants performing with palomino horses, a panther riding a rare white rhino, and tigers, lions, leopards, bears and hyenas performing in the same ring.

Togni stood in a tent that houses 15 female elephants. As he talked, they picked at the chains around their legs, or swayed back and forth while standing on a wooden platform. Activists say such behavior indicates frustration or unhappiness; circus people say it signals relaxation.

As for allegations that the elephants are forced to do unnatural stunts, Togni said that tricks, such as standing up on hind legs while balancing on a pedestal, are adapted from natural behavior. “To reach a high leaf, they have to stand on their hind legs,” he said.

However, Togni said trainers have no choice but to keep the huge animals in chains. “Nobody would allow elephants to be walking around,” he said. “If we have the chance, if there’s a river or a little lake, we let them go swimming.”

He denied that the animals are beaten with bull hooks, saying the rods handlers carry are used only as directional guides. There were no open wounds or scars visible on any of the elephants.

But Ed Stewart, co-director of the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), an activist clearinghouse on circus issues based in Galt, near Sacramento, contends that “a lot of the ugliness goes unseen by the public.”

“If people could only realize that the more an animal can perform like a machine, on cue all the time, the better it is for the trainer,” Stewart said. “People have to ask themselves, how do they do it, how do they get the animals do to it every night?”

Mark Landon, a spokesman for Circus Vargas, said it is against the best interests of circus operators to treat their animals cruelly. “The cost of caring for your animals and treating them humanely is much cheaper than abusing them, having them die and then having to replace them,” he said. “You ever tried to buy a trained elephant?”

The circus protests are similar to demonstrations repeatedly staged in recent years at rodeos. Protesters have become a fixture each fall at the Grand National Rodeo at the Cow Palace in Daly City, near San Francisco. They were outside the rodeo at the Orange County Fair in late June, and last week they showed up at a rodeo on the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara.

“What’s tough about rodeos and circuses is they’re both considered all-American events,” said Joyce George, president of the Ventura Humane Society, which in recent years has helped focus attention on the popular events.

Anti-rodeo activists cite the use of straps cinched near the genitals of broncos, the roping of young calves and the event called bulldogging, in which a cowboy grabs a steer’s horns and tries to slam the animal to the ground.

In a statement, Steve Fleming, media relations director for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn., said one survey showed that less than 0.2% of nearly 7,000 rodeo animals were injured in 1988. Professional rodeo officials, he said, require humane treatment. The bucking strap, as an example, is padded and not painful, Fleming said, adding: “They simply stir in an animal an inherent urge to rid itself of a foreign object.”

It is unclear whether the protests are having any immediate impact on the circus, but the state Legislature, following a public outcry over the Dunda incident in San Diego, made elephant abuse a felony misdemeanor.

Outside the Sports Arena last Tuesday, public reaction to the protests was mixed. Catherine Hegedus of Culver City said she felt circuses were educational as well as entertaining. “This is the only place that the children can see these animals outside of the zoos.” The animals, she added, “don’t look starved.”

But nearby, 13-year-old Rosario St. Gerard, read the leaflets and said they bothered him. “I feel pity for the animals,” he said. “If I pay for a ticket, that means I am supporting cruelty.”

And a Los Angeles woman who asked not to be identified said: “It kind of puts a damper on things. My children have been talking of nothing else all day, but coming to the circus.”

According to animal activist Amory, it is “only a matter of time” before the protests begin taking their toll on circus attendance.