Poor Quality of Life for Circus Animals

By Nichole Seitz
Contributing Writer

Bright colors and elaborate costumes are visible as far as the eye can see. A variety of different sounds are audible from every direction. The smell of unhealthy, greasy food mixed with another more unpleasant aroma fills the air. Children are giddy with excitement for what is about to happen and more often than not, the parents are just happy to get their kids out of the house for a night.

The El Zagal Shrine Circus rolls into town every year much to area residents’ delight. But behind all of the shimmery, beautifully colored costumes, amazing acrobatics and playful clowns looms an alarming issue that few people tend to realize or even think about. Sure, they may notice the key players involved in the issue but it is viewed as entertainment and not something that should be questioned or even stopped.
This issue, the entertainment (if you will), is the most exciting part of the show, the exotic animals. Just look around the Fargo-Moorhead area. There are no elephants roaming around downtown Fargo; no tigers romping in Romkey Park. In fact, the Red River Zoo doesn’t even boast these animals in an exhibit (the Chahinkapa Zoo in Wahpeton is the closest zoo that features tigers). So it is not surprising that people want to attend the show to get a glimpse of a larger than life (and not native to the continent) animal.

“When I was a little kid I always went to the circus with my family,” said Fargo resident Kayla Kinslow, as she recalled her recent trip to the circus.
Bringing children to see animals is a fun and often rewarding experience for parents, as they get to see the joy and excitement of the experience on their children’s faces. But this joy is better suited for a trip to the zoo than a circus.

Arguably one of the first major circus-like events arose in the time of ancient Rome and the Circus Maximus, which was an entertainment venue that was famous for its chariot racing. Roman citizens gathered around a race track to view violent chariot races and other public games.

While circuses, as we know them, do not involve violent battles to the death, they have remained a way for people to be entertained by things that aren’t something they would see everyday. According to the Web site http://www.circusinamerica.org, the word circus was first used to describe a show displaying horsemanship by Charles Hughes, who opened the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy in 1782. Hughes was only a trick rider and his circus was a way to perform for the public.

Soon after the early colonies were started in North America, traveling shows, horse racing and other forms public exhibitions started to pop up. This kind of entertainment started to draw attention and the Continental Congress even began to discourage attendance at these traveling shows because they felt the shows were lewd and unruly.

Shortly after this, circuses began to appear all over the newly independent United States. Eventually, P.T. Barnum and “The Greatest Show On Earth” began making the rounds in the late 1800s. However, the circus reached the height of its popularity in the early 20th century. The shows became more lavish during this time, boasting enough tents, animals and sideshows to fill 14 acres of land.

Animals and acrobats were no longer the only form of entertainment. Freak shows, as they were often referred to, became a staple at these traveling tents. Human oddities, whether it was a medical anomaly (a bearded lady or a giant), or “made act” (a heavily tattooed person or a sword swallower), brought large groups of people wanting to catch a glimpse of something out of the ordinary. But as the Depression hit the country, the circus began to fade into the background. As the United States rebuilt itself, the circus tried to do the same but it never reached the same level of popularity it had once achieved.

Nowadays the circus has become more of a child friendly show in comparison to its beginnings. Long gone are the freak shows and human and animal oddities of the past. Instead, many circuses, like the El Zagal Shrine Circus, feature animal acts as the main form of entertainment.

While adults and kids alike may enjoy the sight of seeing animals perform tricks, more light needs to be shed on how these animals are being treated and used. The El Zagal Shriners host the circus every year and donate the proceeds raised from ticket sales to Shriners children’s hospitals around the country. Monetarily the circus has good intentions. However, in 2007 the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sent a letter to Charlie Skeel, the Illustrious Potentate of the El Zagal Shriners at the time.

Tim Frisco, an elephant trainer that was traveling with the circus that the Shriners hired for the show, was caught on video tape abusing elephants with metal bull hooks and electric prods. The letter that was sent to Skeel asked the group to stop associating with circuses that use and abuse animals. The circus was held that year but the Shriners did choose another circus company to do their business with after that.

Carson & Barnes, the company that Frisco was a trainer for, is not the only circus being put on blast for how the animals are handled. The Ringling Bros. Circus was also investigated by PETA and again, footage was shot of a handler mistreating and prodding the elephants. Officials of the Ringling Bros. said that they were unaware of the video but they maintained that all of their animals were treated fairly.

That is not the first time the Ringling Bros. have come under fire for the treatment of their animals. In 1998 the circus donated $20,000 to an elephant care group to settle a case involving the death of a three-year-old elephant in a Jacksonville, Fla., circus. Ringling Bros., however, did not admit any guilt in the case. A large donation like that is all the admission of guilt the public needs to hear to form their own opinion.

Last month Lima, a zebra, escaped from the Ringling Bros. show in Atlanta. The animal, which was in a training pen at the time, made it onto a busy highway during rush hour traffic. Lima ran free on the highway for about 40 minutes before he was captured, according to PETA’s Web site. In early March the circus announced that it had euthanized Lima due to failed attempts to repair damage to the zebra’s hooves. It is unfortunate that such a beautiful, exotic animal has to be put to death because he saw a moment of freedom.

Here in town the circus was kicked off with a parade in downtown Fargo. Protestors from the group Born Free USA were on hand to distribute fliers to attendees. According to their Web site, http://www.bornfreeusa.org, the group advocates “to end the suffering of wild animals in captivity, rescue individual animals in need, protect wildlife—including highly endangered species—in their natural habitats, and encourage compassionate conservation globally.”

“I thought it was ridiculous handing those fliers out at an event like that,” said circus-goer Kayla Kinslow. “Really, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal because that’s how animals are trained.”

MSUM student and former Bismark Zoo volunteer Jessica Odegard disagrees. “I always just thought that it seemed like the animals were just being used as entertainment and didn’t really have the greatest living conditions,” said Odegard. “I mean I can’t say for certain what their living conditions are, maybe they are being treated well but I would be willing to bet that based on the nature of that industry, that their top priority isn’t making sure that the animals are being treated humanely all the time. I’ve always just been a little hesitant in participating in those types of activities. I’ve just always been an animal person and it would bother me to think that I was contributing to something that might be a form of cruelty to animals.”

Circuses travel around the country 11 of the 12 months of the year. During most of this time the animals are caged and penned up because they are traveling. For the fleeting amount of time the animals are able to be outside of cages, they are performing in a show doing tricks that don’t come naturally to them. Another, more disturbing fact, is that if an animal doesn’t do a trick during the show, that animal is put back in the cage.

Crystal Knutson took her children to the circus and witnessed this first hand. “One of the tigers wasn’t doing what they wanted it to. So eventually they just gave up and made it go back into the cage,” said Knutson.

Circus goers attend the event because it is a family-friendly atmosphere that children love. However, cases of animal abuse and a poor quality of life run rampant through the circus industry.

Encourage friends and family members to stay away from circuses that feature animals for entertainment. Instead, try and suggest circus events that feature strictly human entertainment like acrobatics. If enough attention is brought to cases of animal abuse in the circus, then something can finally be done to stop them. Since there aren’t any strict governmental rules regarding circus animals, it is up to the public to stop supporting these animal-driven events.

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