Ringling Brings Elephant Walk, Controversy to NYC Tonight

Photo via semyon's flickr.

The Ringling Bros. dubs the Elephant Walk the "media event of the year," but it's more likely to create a bit of a media circus, which will all go down just before midnight tonight.

Their "annual parade of precocious pachyderms and high-stepping horses" will begin once the animals are unloaded from their stock cars at 11:30 p.m. Expected to start their jaunt around 11:59 p.m., they'll likely be emerging from the Queens Midtown Tunnel on their way to Madison Square Garden around 12:30 a..m. This is all in celebration of Ringling's "Zing Zang Zoom" circus, which will be housed at the Garden from March 26th through April 13th.

Expect protesters to be out with the revelers, however, as many view the event as a parade of cruelty. PETA already stopped by a New York school to teach kids about circus cruelty through their arm-slinged elephant mascot. Meanwhile, Rational Animal has comprised a list titled "The Facts," which includes the following statements:

Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus is currently being sued by the ASPCA, Animal Welfare Institute, The Fund for Animals and the Animal Protection Institute for violating the Ecircusndangered Species Act, abuse of wild, exotic animals.
In this lawsuit, the leading animal welfare groups state that Ringling Bros. Circus staff "routinely beat elephants, chain them for long periods of time, hit them with sharp bull hooks, break baby elephants with force to make them submissive, and forcibly remove baby elephants from their mothers before they are weaned."
The Animal Welfare Institute has obtained evidence based on the circus's own documents that Ringling Bros. keeps elephants virtually immobilized in chains for the majority of their lives.
Elephants perform for 8 minutes during each show. The rest of the time they are chained and confined to small areas and training entails hitting using a bullhook - a stick with a sharp metal hook on the end.

At least Thomas Edison is out of the picture? Tomorrow at noon the New York League of Humane Voters (NYLHV), joined by City Council Member Rosie Mendez (D-Manhattan), Yetta Kurland, candidate for city council in the 3rd district which includes MSG and Bob, the NYLHV’s “elephant ambassador,” will bring their message to MSG and Ringling Bros. They declare "the days of bullying and abusing animals in the name of 'entertainment' are over. New Yorkers refuse to support and expose their children to the product of beatings and bloodshed."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Carlson in Arts and Events on March 23, 2009 4:19 PM

Comments [rss]

nyrangers

i have a strong feeling that elephant does not LOVE ny.

Kingpin

If felixthecat makes a post in a forest and nobody posts a reply, is he still a loudmouth?

NannyState

The last time The Ringling Brothers did an "elephant walk", they were banned from Rugby practice.

snickerdoodle

You know why elephants don't go on marauding rampages in the wild? Because there's no Ringling Bros. trainer there to abuse them physically and psychologically.

People should boycott all animal circuses. Instead, take your family to see a better circus, like Cirque du Soleil.

stargirlinnyc

I read Sarah Gruen's novel Water for Elephants, (a novel about turn of the century circus life) and imagery of the bullhook used on the elephants broke my heart.

Don't go to the circus - the clowns are creepy anyway.

Homer2323

I wonder how many people who protest this stuff are for abortion.

tmz is evil

I wonder how many people who protest this stuff are for abortion.

About as many people who are against abortion but support war, I reckon.

felixthecat2

Do you wonder also how many people who support this cruelty are for abortion?

felixthecat2

The Animal Odd Couple

In this latest installment of CBS News' "Assignment America," Steve Hartman visits an animal sanctuary where a dog and an elephant have formed a very lasting, and unusual, friendship

This is my last post but a beautiful story

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4696315n

dadoc

Um, Felix, like agreeing with you here. Performing elephants, dancing bears, crazy Connecticut women with chimps, guys setting cats on fire, offing endangered species for stupid cultural fixations, agreed. Let's just leave the agreement at that and don't extrapolate. If Circ de Soleil can give a beautiful and fixating show in a manner that doesn't irk folks, I think it's time Ringling got out of the 19th & early 20th centuries and found a new act. That same old stuff is an unnecessary anachronism. But even Circ should do away with the clown thing. Clowns are just evil incarnate, and should be exterminated and outlawed.

felixthecat2

http://www.circuses.com/

Behind the scenes, elephant trainer Tim Frisco instructs would-be trainers how to dominate elephants and make them perform circus tricks. “Sink that hook into ’em. When you hear that screaming, then you know you got their attention.” An elephant trumpets in agony as Frisco’s bullhook, with its sharp metal hook and spiked end, tears through her sensitive skin. Frisco, a Carson & Barnes elephant trainer, learned the trade from his father, a former trainer for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Click here to watch the video.

felixthecat2

Elephants are chained for an average of more than 26 hours at a time, sometimes for as many as 60–100 hours straight on extended trips. Chained and barely able to take a step, the elephants sway neurotically.

Kenneth Feld—CEO of Feld Entertainment, the company that owns Ringling—had to admit that he's seen handlers use bullhooks to hit elephants in the secret places where the wounds don't show up as much (i.e., under the chin, behind the ear, and on the back of the leg).

Ringling's animal behaviorist testified that an elephant who had been struck with a bullhook was seen dripping blood on the arena floor during a show.

In internal e-mails that came to light, a Ringling veterinary assistant reported, "After this morning's baths, at least 4 of the elephants came in with multiple abrasions and lacerations from the [bull]hooks. … The [lacerations] were very visible …. [A handler] applied … wonder dust just before the show." (Wonder Dust is a gray dressing powder that circus workers can use to conceal bloody bullhook wounds.)

Another internal report documented that Troy Metzler, a longtime Ringling elephant trainer, struck Angelica, a female Asian elephant, three to five times while she was held in stocks before unloading her and then shocking her with an electric prod.

Two former Ringling employees, who had previously blown the whistle to PETA, described the abuse that they witnessed while working for the circus, including a violent beating of an elephant that lasted at least 30 minutes.