Elephant Deaths Draw Spotlight’s Glare

The deaths of two elephants within the past week during Circus Vargas’ Los Angeles run have intensified the conflict between the animal rights movement and one of America’s oldest forms of entertainment.

It is a clash of P.T. Barnum-era theatrics and modern morality. To generations of fans and promoters, parading elephants have symbolized the size and spectacle of “the greatest show on earth,” accounting for much of the economic lifeblood of the traveling circus.

But the deaths of the elephants Joyce and Hattie--who performed with Vargas almost until the days they died--have brought a cry from animal rights activists who say circuses routinely exploit elephants and other exotic animals with little regard for their comfort and well-being. Federal health officials, who are investigating the deaths, believe that the two Asian pachyderms died of tuberculosis.

“These sad elephant deaths should ring an alarm for anybody with respect for animals to avoid animal circuses. Animal circuses simply teach children it’s OK to whip, chain and beat another living being for our amusement,” said Dan Mathews of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, one of the nation’s largest animal rights organizations.

Deborah Famiglietti, a volunteer with Education and Action for Animals, based in Redondo Beach, said circus elephants spend much of their time in shackles or in travel trailers that are neither heated nor air-conditioned. Often, she said, the animals are not given food or water prior to performances “to avoid untimely excrement.”

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“The shackled and tormented life of circus animals is barbarous and demeaning to both the animals and people,” Famiglietti said.

The criticisms have escalated in recent years as some activist groups have gone undercover to try to document cases of abuse. At the same time, the circus industry has struggled to compete with rival forms of entertainment--from proliferating major league sports franchises and video games to the Internet.

Elephants are one of the essentials necessary to the survival of the circus, many industry experts say. Circus Vargas tried to do without its performing elephants for two years, but attendance dropped and many patrons expressed a desire to see the animals return, circus officials said.

“They’re something that people come to see, and without them it’s just not the same,” said Rebecca Black, a publicist for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, the nation’s largest circus, which is staging shows this weekend at the Pond in Anaheim. Those shows will feature 16 elephants, including seven-ton King Tusk, the biggest known circus performer.

Crowds find the animals’ vast size enthralling, Black said.

“A lot of the cities that we play in don’t even have zoos,” she said. “A lot of the time [a circus] is a child’s only chance to see an exotic animal.”

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Ringling Bros., which has been one target of animal rights groups in recent years, takes great pains to ensure the health and safety of its performing elephants, Black said. Except for King Tusk, who is transported in his own tractor trailer, the animals are always shipped in specially designed train cars where their food and water is carefully monitored, she said. The animals are trained only with positive reinforcement--snacks and kind words--and never with whips or beatings, she said.

Ringling Bros. may be the only circus to employ a full-time veterinarian--the circus has two--to look after the elephants, who are monitored 24 hours a day, Black said.

Smaller circuses, which crisscross the country to offer entertainment in one-ring tents, are often unable to afford constant medical care or special transport cars. Still, the tenuous economics of the industry require circus owners to safeguard the health and safety of the elephants, said Simone Finner, a Hollywood-based agent for circus performers.

A circus elephant can cost $20,000 and command as much as $5,000 a day in rental for special events, depending on how far they must travel, Finner said. She estimated that there are about 50 traveling circuses in the United States and said “49 of them” have at least one elephant. Typically, circuses feature the animals as performers in the ring and also offer elephant rides that bring in a substantial amount of additional revenue--$2 or $3 per person.

Without the elephants, perhaps half or more of those circuses would fold, said Finner, who noted that the pachyderms have been a staple of the industry ever since P.T. Barnum brought the first circus elephant, Jumbo, to America in 1882.

Still, many rights activists insist that it is no longer acceptable to expose animals to the hardships of traveling and performing.

Pat Derby, director of the Performing Animal Welfare Society, said her organization has studied elephants used in traveling shows and has found that many are trained with beating and electric shocks. The practices are one reason for a rise in rampages by performing elephants in recent years, resulting in deaths and injuries to trainers and spectators, she said.

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John Cuneo, the owner of the two elephants that died during the Circus Vargas run, was also the owner of an elephant named Tyke that rampaged during a show in Honolulu two years ago, killing the trainer, Derby said.

Cuneo, who rented the elephants to Circus Vargas, denied mistreating the animals and said he is offended by the activists who have criticized him.

Hattie and Joyce gave rides to children as recently as last week in Compton and performed almost until their deaths. At the request of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Circus Vargas agreed to stop using its three remaining elephants until officials can determine whether they, too, have contracted tuberculosis. Those elephants were being isolated from other performing animals while the circus prepared to open Friday night at Sierra Vista High School in Baldwin Park. Circus Vargas is scheduled to travel next week to Loma Linda and East Los Angeles.

Tuberculosis can be transmitted from elephants to people, although that is rare, and children who rode the animals do not need to be tested, said Dr. Shirley Fannin, the county’s director of disease control.

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“The risks of exposure from casual contact is quite low,” Fannin said. “The people most at risk are the people who were in the building and exposed for a prolonged period, like the handlers and other circus people.”

Joyce--who died last Saturday, three days before Hattie--had been ill for months. Animal rights activists said they began complaining in March to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which inspects circus animals to make sure they are not being mistreated, because Joyce had lost a tremendous amount of weight. USDA veterinarian Ron DeHaven, regional director of the animal care division, said the agency began monitoring the elephant at that point.

“We’re absolutely outraged at the insensitivity and the greed . . . on the part of people who run Circus Vargas,” said Mathews of PETA.

Cuneo acknowledged that Joyce dropped from about 8,000 pounds to 7,000 over a 10-month period, but he defended the circus’s treatment of her. Joyce was sent from icy Illinois to California in February because circus officials knew she would get some sun and warmth, with little travel and stress, he said.

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“I’m really offended that these animal rights people think we did anything to hurt this elephant,” Cuneo said. “This elephant was part of our family.”

Cuneo said he initially thought that Joyce was losing weight because she was having dental problems. Cuneo said blood tests showed an iron deficiency, so Joyce was given supplements, which failed to boost her weight.

Dr. Charles Sedgwick, director of animal health services at the Los Angeles Zoo, said he became aware that Circus Vargas was having trouble with an elephant six weeks ago, when the circus borrowed a scale. He was critical of the use of a sick elephant in a circus act.

“We knew they had a thin elephant,” Sedgwick said. “I don’t think that anyone should show or do anything like that to a sick animal.”

On July 6, activists demonstrated at the circus’s venue in Redondo Beach, protesting that Joyce was still working. Joyce performed the evening of Aug. 2., but the next day, after prodding from the USDA, the 47-year-old elephant was put under anesthesia at a Riverside County facility to have the teeth on one side of her mouth worked on, DeHaven said. She died soon after the procedure.

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Workers used a forklift to put the animal’s body on a truck for transport to the San Bernardino State Diagnostic Lab. A necropsy showed that 80% of Joyce’s lung tissue was infected either with cancer or tuberculosis. The body was taken to a rendering factory to be processed into animal food.

Famiglietti, the activist, who tracked the case, said she had never seen an elephant that skinny.

“She was a bag of bones,” Famiglietti said.

Hattie, the other elephant, performed last Saturday, but became weak after she was being unloaded off a truck in Lawndale on Sunday. Her hind legs gave out beneath her. On Monday night, she was loaded on a trailer to Illinois, but died in the trailer while traveling through Colorado. The body was taken to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where preliminary tests show that the animal, in her 30s, may have also had tuberculosis.

“She had to die in the back of a trailer, alone, with no medical attention,” Famiglietti said. “Circus elephants . . . spend days in trailers. They spend their lives in chains.”

Circus Vargas officials pointed out that this year was the first time since 1993 that they have used an elephant act in its one-ring show that travels through Southern California and into Las Vegas from March to November every year.

In 1994, the circus offered no wild animal acts, but attendance dipped considerably, said marketing director Ross Yukawa. Last year, scores of customers asked about bringing back the elephants, which have always been a popular attraction. And so five elephants were leased from Cuneo, of Grayslake, Ill., who owns an elephant farm and leases out 12 elephants to parks and circuses.

Ferrell is a Times staff writer. Belgum is a Times correspondent reporting from the South Bay. Times staff writer Tina Daunt contributed to this report.