First, the video…
Now the details…
On the morning of January 31, PETA sent an urgent letter to Chester A. Gipson, deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) animal care unit, urging him to immediately remove from the road several elephants traveling with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus because the elephants could pose a grave danger to the public. PETA’s request comes after a panel of experts reviewed video footage of Ringling’s red unit animal walks. The experts were alarmed when they saw Ringling handlers frequently lose control of the 4-ton elephants. In video clips from five different cities, the elephants are seen straying from handlers, walking onto residents’ lawns, and failing to respond to commands. The elephants also become agitated (which can cause them to run amok) when they are aggressively mishandled—including being struck with steel-tipped bullhooks to the point of crying out.
PETA sought the opinions of elephant experts as well as Blayne Doyle, a now-retired Palm Bay, Fla., police officer. In 1992, Doyle was forced to shoot and kill an elephant named Janet, who rampaged while a mother and five children were riding on the animal’s back. “I almost had to shut off the video,” said Doyle. “The cries from the elephants were the same as Janet’s as she ran from the gunfire in Palm Bay. I was alarmed at how little control the handlers had over these huge animals—walking them into residential neighborhoods is insane.”
Les Schobert—who has more than 30 years of experience in Asian elephant care and management, including handling and training—states, “The trainers do not appear to have adequate control over the elephants. … Collectively, there’s roughly 80,000 pounds of potentially dangerous animals being walked in a public area in an unsafe manner. It’s reckless and unnecessary to put the public’s safety in jeopardy purely for our amusement.”
“Ringling’s abusive treatment of elephants has made them ticking time bombs—as was evidenced by a reported Ringling elephant attack on a trainer this month,” says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. “We’re asking the USDA to remove these animals from travel before another bloody scene like the one in Palm Bay is repeated.”
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