In the Center Ring: Charges of Elephant Abuse

Canada-based Cirque du Soleil continues to demonstrate how wonderfully entertaining and humane animal-free circus can be as theater. Now comes a grimmer picture in tonight’s “Earth Rescue: Circus of Abuse--Elephants, Trainers & Tragedy,” a slender but tough documentary using undercover footage to chronicle conditions said to be imposed on many of these massive, intelligent creatures under the big top.

Airing on cable’s Outdoor Life Network, it’s produced with the Humane Society of the United States, whose Richard Farinato maintains here that “there’s no way around” abuse when elephants are trained for circuses such as those of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. “It may not be constant abuse,” Farinato says. “There may not be visible abuse. But there is abuse, because these animals don’t perform out of love. They don’t perform out of need for food. They perform because they know there’s a penalty to pay [if they don’t].”

The training process “is something nobody wants to show their children,” adds Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel), a leading backer of a bill that would ban using elephants in circuses and as carnival rides. On the screen is grainy footage of elephants, both babies and adults, being beaten by trainers. And we hear undocumented reports that Ringling Bros. elephants are confined in boxcars and kept in chains 90% of the time.

Not so, argues William Horn, a Ringling Bros. legislative representative, who denies these charges of abuse and says that circus’ elephants are allowed to roam free when not performing.

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The fundamental moral issue raised here is whether, in any scenario, elephants should be bent to the will of humans, and on a pragmatic level, whether they even can be.

“We are creating time bombs,” says Carol Buckley, a former elephant handler who now runs a sanctuary for former circus elephants. Some of these “time bombs” have already exploded, witness human deaths caused by rampaging circus elephants in recent years.

“Why should we deny the circuses of the country this wonderful entertainment?” asks a Ringling Bros. spokesperson. Another question implicit in this documentary: What right have we to deny elephants the freedom to be elephants?

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* “Earth Rescue: Circus of Abuse--Elephants, Trainers & Tragedy” can be seen tonight at 9 on the Outdoor Life Network.