If you’ve ever been to the circus, you may recall laughing and applauding when watching all the beautiful elephants doing all those ‘cute’ tricks. What you don’t know is the terror that goes on behind the scenes to train these animals to perform. In 2009, PETA went undercover at “the saddest show on Earth”—Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus—and captured Ringling workers on video as they beat and whipped elephants dozens of times in venues across the country (video below). What else do you call the beating of an animal with a steel-tipped rod anything but “abuse”?
According to PETA, that’s exactly what circus workers do every day: They beat and strike elephants to make them perform ridiculous, uncomfortable, frightening, and often painful tricks. These rods—called “bullhooks”—resemble fireplace pokers and are repeatedly sunk into the most sensitive parts of an elephant’s skin to force him or her to submit to the trainer’s will. These beautiful creatures are made to endure great pain and suffering daily, including the babies.
Animals used in circuses such as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey live a dismal life in which they are dominated, confined, and violently trained. Workers routinely beat, shock, and whip them until they learn to perform ridiculous tricks that make no sense to them.
Most elephants used by circuses were captured in the wild. Once removed from their families and natural habitat, their lives consist of little more than chains and intimidation. Some baby elephants are born on breeding farms, where they are torn away from their mothers, tethered with ropes, and kept in isolation until they learn to fear their trainers. Throughout their lifetime, all that they will ever know is extreme loneliness and beatings with sharp bullhooks.
According to PETA, “an undercover investigation reveals that Ringling abuses elephants.” Warning: This video is very distrubing.
MEET THE ELEPHANTS and read their sad stories…
Finally, the public and government officials are beginning to see the bullhook for exactly what it is: a weapon designed for the sole purpose of causing pain and distress to animals.
Earlier this month, the board of commissioners in Fulton County, Georgia, voted to forbid the use of bullhooks on elephants under penalty of law. This important victory came after pressure from PETA vigorous campaigning with PETA members in the community—including actor and Atlanta-native Demi Moore—and should serve as a wake-up call to those who would abuse an animal in the name of entertainment for profit.
The bullhook is a cruel device: a heavy rod with a sharp metal hook and a spike on one end that is used by trainers to beat, jab, hook, and yank elephants in order to force these huge, magnificent individuals to perform tricks that they do not understand, for reasons that they do not understand, over and over again. Trainers sink the sharp metal point of a bullhook into the sensitive skin behind elephants’ ears and knees and the soft flesh under the chin, causing the animals to trumpet in pain and raise their trunks aloft in a sign of submission.
PETA undercover investigations have revealed that elephants in circuses are “broken” as babies and learn to fear the bullhook for good reason.
Throughout their lives of servitude, workers strike them repeatedly with bullhooks in order to intimidate them and remind them that they need to do as they’re told or suffer the painful consequences.
PETA investigators have uncovered evidence that workers use these hooks to gouge baby elephants—who were torn away from their mothers at a very young age—and they have photographs of trainers cruelly wrestling baby elephants to the ground using tie-down ropes, bullhooks, and electric-shock devices as they force them to learn tricks.
Today, elephant sanctuaries and most zoos refuse to use bullhooks or other weapon-like tools to punish elephants. Corporal punishment has been replaced with positive reinforcement, such as food rewards. Yet for elephant trainers and handlers in circuses, the bullhook is the most vital weapon that they have to break an elephant’s spirit.
Circuses are sad, deadly places for all animals, who from a young age are forced into lives of punishment, debasement, and extreme loneliness.
We hope that Fulton County’s new law is just the first of many that will help stop the suffering and abuse of animals in circuses, but there is a long way to go before elephants and other animals are no longer secretly beaten for people’s amusement.
What can you do about it? You can help PETA in their heroic and dedicated efforts to help elephants who are trapped in circuses, and all other abused animals as well.
Won’t you support PETA’s fight to stop the suffering and abuse of animals for frivolous entertainment by making a tax-deductible gift right now?
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