Beatings Under the Big Top

Caught in the Act
An animal handler with the Sterling & Reid Bros. Circus was recently charged with four counts of cruelty to animals and jailed for allegedly striking an elephant repeatedly with a steel bullhook, leaving the animal suffering from bleeding wounds. The chief elephant handler with the circus was also arrested and charged with obstruction of justice after becoming hostile toward officers investigating the attack. Click here to read the Associated Press story on the abuse.

PETA has been informing the public for years that circuses beat their animals into submission and that if it weren’t for the whips, chains, electric prods, and bullhooks, animals would never be a part of the circus. In fact, at the same time as the arrests were taking place, just a few yards away members of PETA were showing an undercover videotape revealing yet another elephant trainer viciously attacking terrified elephants with a sharp, metal bullhook and instructing other trainers to rip the hook through the elephants’ flesh until they scream out in pain—as well as to conceal the beatings from the public.

Transport Troubles
As if the training techniques weren’t bad enough, even sadder is the fact that majestic elephants, who in the wild would walk up to 50 miles a day, are restrained with chains often up to 22 hours a day. Big cats, who would secure 2,000 square miles in the wild, depending on food availability, are allowed to be confined to cages so small that they have just enough room to stand up and turn around.

Sterling & Reid has a history riddled with violations to even these minimal regulations. The circus pleaded guilty to cruelty charges in San Bernardino County, California, in 1998 after humane officials confiscated eight severely emaciated ponies from a filthy trailer. A 9-year-old, 400-pound Syrian brown bear fell from a Sterling & Reid trailer while the circus was driving on a freeway through New Orleans at night. The bear had been hit by the trailer and was dazed and bleeding from his mouth when he was found on the road by motorists.

A Laundry List of Cruelty
From January 1999 through May 1999, USDA inspectors noted 46 violations of the Animal Welfare Act. A USDA inspector witnessed exotic cats being struck repeatedly with jagged sticks and a tiger escaping from a tent.

The circus leases its elephants from the tragedy-plagued Hawthorn Corporation, which has a long history of serious federal Animal Welfare Act violations. Hawthorn has accumulated $72,500 in U.S. Department of Agriculture penalties and has twice had its license suspended. Four of Hawthorn’s elephants died of a human strain of tuberculosis. In January 1997, Hawthorn’s herd of 18 elephants was restricted from traveling during tuberculosis treatment. Hawthorn’s elephants have rampaged, causing death, injury, and property damage. Click here to view PETA’s factsheet on Hawthorn.

You Can Help
Please write a polite letter thanking Norfolk officials for filing cruelty charges and ask that they prosecute this sickening act of cruelty to the fullest extent of the law. Contact:

Bernard Pishko, City Attorney
City Council’s Office
908 City Hall Blvd., 810 Union St.
Norfolk, VA 23510
Fax: 757-664-4201

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