Rue Backs Landmark Legislation to Stop Circus Cruelty

Emmy-winning "Golden Girl" and Oklahoma native Rue McClanahan joined her hometown representative, Raymond McCarter, at the State Capitol to announce the introduction of legislation making standard, cruel elephant-training methods, such as food and water deprivation and severe physical punishment, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The honorary PETA director was outraged when she saw PETA’s undercover video footage of Carson & Barnes Circus’ head elephant trainer, Tim Frisco, cursing at and beating elephants with a bullhook.

In the videotape, secretly recorded at the circus’s Hugo, Oklahoma, compound, Frisco, the son of a former Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey trainer, yells, "Sink that hook into ’em! Don’t touch ’em, hurt ’em . . . When you hear that screaming, then you know you got their attention. Right here in the barn. You can’t do it on the road. I’m not gonna touch her in front of a thousand people." The elephants scream in fear and pain as Frisco strikes and jabs at them with the sharp bullhook.

Circuses claim that exotic animals, such as the highly intelligent, endangered Asian elephants beaten at Carson & Barnes, are trained with "positive reinforcement." But former elephant trainers say that Frisco’s violent methods are standard practice in all circuses. Elephant trainers often dig the hook into the soft tissue behind the ears, inside the ear or mouth, in and around the anus, and in tender spots under the chin and around the feet. Elephants perform grueling circus routines because they fear punishment.

Click here to view PETA’s undercover video of Carson & Barnes Circus elephant training.

Click here to read PETA's news release announcing this legislation.

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