As the Royal Hanneford Circus continues its run this weekend at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, it's hard to miss three of the biggest attractions of the show — the elephants.
Ringmaster Billy Martin says the circus takes pride in its three elephants, and in the care that the circus staff gives the animals. He calls it a "25-hour" a day job making sure the elephants are well cared for.
The 38th annual showing of the circus at the County Center began on Saturday, and continues Sunday and Monday. Shows run Feb. 16, 17, and 18 at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Tickets to the Royal Hanneford Circus are available at the Westchester County Center Box Office or on ticketmaster.com. 198 Central Ave, White Plains. $23.50
Dr. Gay Bradshaw has diagnosed elephants with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder years ago. "Elephants on the Edge” is very thoroughly researched and beautifully presented-a devastating, scientific chronicle of the ignorance, cruelty, and mismanagement that placed these magnificent creatures in their present dire situation. "Science leaders have reached a critical consensus: Humans are not the only conscious beings; other animals, specifically mammals and birds, are indeed conscious, too." http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
Your argument about poachers is simply another issue. You don't fix the poacher problem by putting elephants in circuses. You fix the poaching problem.
Circuses are the issue here. They treat wild animals horribly. They are under constant investigation. There are several horrendous hidden camera videos of what goes on there. Go watch one and then see if you are comfortable with that barbarism in your town. And sometimes people die when these wild animals go insane and charge the audience. Really, can't we find better ways to entertain ourselves than an antiquated circus?
It is never okay to take a baby elephant (or any animal) and beat, hook, jab them with bullhooks, ropes, whips and shock them with an electric prod daily for months on end until they break their spirit. Just to make them perform unnatural tricks to entertain the circus’s audience. If the circus was caught training their performing dogs like they train the elephants they would be arrested, jailed, fined and their animals confiscated for animal abuse.
http://www.lionden.com/faqs.htm#abuse
Should a lawyer sponsor a class action suit on behalf of the wild deer that have had their habitat destroyed by a housing development? How many of the people living in that housing development love the animals' natural habitat, even as they live in a house that helped destroy the natural habitat? We can speak of natural habitat all we want, but almost every human being, for better or for worse, takes animals out of their habitat. Everthing humans do can affect animals not just circuses. It is not easy to draw the line. A good dialog on this is better than ranting.
PS - On the human side, the clown stunk. Satrick, a young dude who can look at his own butt and who contorted himself into a little box was hard to watch but cool. Jugglers, great. The rest getting old and fat.