Circus Elephants

Re “Elephant Walk,” July 26:

Taking any wild animal from its habitat, alive or dead, is a crime, just as “ethnic cleansing’s” removal of people from their homes and herding them into camps is a crime.

Elephants are the most powerful, dangerous creatures in the wild, feared by humans and other animals alike. In order to “tame” such an animal to make him either work in fields or perform tricks in circuses, a young elephant’s spirit is systematically and brutally broken, with fear, pain, hunger and thirst, isolation from his kind (elephants are extremely social animals), incarceration and severe movement restriction in chains.

When the spirit is broken, the cycle is repeated in the “training.” Perhaps Ringling offers its animals better conditions than other circuses, but any organization that exploits animals by distorting their nature for profit should be boycotted and abolished, “longstanding circus tradition” notwithstanding.

RACHEL ROSENTHAL

Los Angeles