Never mind that the Melha Shrine Circus made a promise to permanently end the archaic practice of including performing wild animals, (oxymoron, much?) especially elephants, in their Big Top acts.
Never mind that an unknowing (to the training methods performing elephants must endure, with baby elephants being the most traumatized) but cash-generating, public fails to attend an elephant-less circus show.
Image: CC Wkimedia : Example of a Baby Circus Elephant Enduring Abusive Training
What does matter is that the Melha Shrine Circus and Chairman Allen G. Zippin are turning their backs to the known cruelty that exists when training an elephant or other performing wild animals to unnaturally dance on their hind legs or jump through a hoop engulfed in flames.
Does teaching children, who are the very recipients of your charity endeavors Mr. Zippin, that putting profits over cruelty to elephants (it has been proven that performing elephants are beaten with bullhooks and even shocked with electric probes) is right and just, here and now?
Do The Hamid Elephants , who are brokered through just another “Rent an Elephant” firm, actually the Hamid Circus themselves, deserve facing the fear and the pain and the cruelty that this circus stint (albeit a short one) will, once again, bring around?
Even one minute of abuse that an elephant has to endure is too much Mr. Zippin. It is not as if a four day (4 May – 7 May 2017) show can be overlooked, not now, not ever, sir.
Image: by Marion Doss, CC Flickr: Historic Hamid – Morton Shrine Circus Elephant 1964
Please look beyond the grand illusions of the circus and know that there is something very wrong when such an intelligent creature, as an elephant, is made to perform such unnatural contortions that even most humans are unable to withstand.
And no Mr. Zippin, there is no “love and care” involved in the performing elephant training process. Performing elephants are overworked, many times to the point of damaging their health and to the point of the elephant’s exhaustion. (Free Nosey the Elephant)
Elephant advocates are already coming forward to protect our elephants from this continued abuse.
Sheryl Becker from the Western Massachusetts Animal Rights Advocates has an online petition that has garnered many signatures so far.
Show your support for saving our captive and performing elephants from a life of misery. Please sign her Petition “Melha Shrine Circus: Go Animal-Free Again!” here.
Image: CC Flicker : Historic Hamid – Morton Shrine Circus Elephant , Circus Baby Elephant Training (Note: This was taken of the Ringling Circus who in 2017 will cease to exist. But performing baby elephants and circus baby elephants are all put through similar training in order to instill a fear in them at an early age. Fear of the bullhooks and their human trainers who strike them with the metal pointed stick to make these wild animals learn to perform tricks.)
Source: The Daily Mail ” Animal Rights Backlash Begins: Circus Reinstates Performing Elephants and Tigers a Year After Scrapping Them Because Its Audience Has Fallen and Spectators Are Demanding Refunds” by Thomas Burrows for Mailonline
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