The High Environmental Costs of Using Animals for Entertainment
PETA’s newest report exposes the secret, violent, and cruel training methods that Ringling Bros use in training baby elephants to perform for their circus.
The photos are not for the faint of heart, but such breaking news not only provokes disgust at human cruelty towards animals, it also raises the question of the environmental impact of circuses.
Outside the business that treats animals like commodities, who knows how many resources circus animals consume? Obviously, untrained animals aren’t worth anything to the circus because they cannot perform in order to attract a paying crowd, so circuses spend an untold number of hours training the animals.
The cost of training aside, any circus faces the cost of food for the animals, as well as shelter, lodging, and transportation cost as the circus moves from city to city.
When animals live in their natural habitat, they don’t compete with humans for access to clean water, real estate, food, and shelter. It is only when animals are extracted forcefully from their natural environment, transported and housed in an urban area that the cost, both monetary and ecological, become senseless.
People who say that they pay for admission into a circus show in order to see “real” animals are kidding themselves because trained circus animals don’t behave normally at all. Why would an elephant kneel and bow to a clapping crowd? Is there even a clapping audience in the wild? What, other than an electric prod, would prompt an elephant to perform a balancing act on a ball? In a sense, the photos obtained by PETA shouldn't be as shocking because what other than abuse and torture would induce animals to perform acts that are entirely unnatural to them?
The ability to train any animal is evident. The real question is: should we spend precious resources to do so?
Do these circus animals even receive adequate veterinary care? Are their diets supervised by an animal nutritionist? What does the circus do to animals who are too old or too sick to continue performing?
And since animals don’t use flush toilets, where exactly does the waste go? This thought alone should mobilize those who live in cities about to receive a traveling circus to stop city officials from granting any circus the permit to perform.
PETA appeals to parents, children, teachers, corporate sponsors, to stop funding circuses by being a paying audience, taking a field trip, or sponsoring circus performances. Please show compassion and kindness to animals by a refusal to support the exploitation of lives for entertainment purposes.
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