Circuses are BEYOND evil, especially Ringling Bros. Animals are tortured and die. Please stop going!!

Good for you…I’d never, ever support any circus that uses animals. If you’re interested in seeing exactly how they convince those elephants to move around, there are several undercover videos on youtube, from PETA as well as other organizations and activists. Recently Ringling Brothers agreed to pay a record-breaking penalty to the USDA for violations of the Animal Welfare Act that occurred between 2007 and 2011.

Delving further, they are paying $270,000. The USDA can levy a fine of $10,000 for each violation of the AWA, so there are 27 instances that they know of. Of course, as part of the settlement Ringling Brother’s admits to no guilt or wrongdoing.

The lawsuit that brought about the settlement was brought on by PETA…The lawsuit alleged that the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is in violation of the Endangered Species Act and that the circus systematically abuses and exploits elephants by using metal bullhooks to guide and control the animals, as well as chaining their legs while they are not performing.

The lawsuit was dismissed in October on the grounds that the two animal protection organizations did not have the standing to bring the lawsuit against Feld Entertainment because they could not establish legal “injury” to themselves.

Not long before that an elephant died because they refused to get outside veterinary care. They were recently in an appeals court because they refused to hand over their elephants’ veterinary records, and are accused of destroying veterinary reports when the USDA has demanded to see them.

We haven’t been, but Circus Vargus is an animal free circus in our area. We’re waiting for the kids to be older, so they can appreciate it. Maybe next year.

We took my daughter to a cirque show this summer right after her sixth birthday and she was completely enthralled with it and loved every second of it. That said my daughter is my daughter takes artistic gymnastics classes and ballet for 3 years at that time and had just finished a rhythmic gymnastics camp and we have taken her to many other artsy performances earlier that summer with the Spoleto festival in Charleston, SC. I think the main reason she found it very interesting is that we had talked to her about the things she is doing now could lead to her being able to do things that she saw. If you do decide to take your kids I would try taking them to a children ballet performance first to see how they react to more artsy performances it would be a good gauge to see how they would react and then find something that they could relate to in the show. They have tumblers and acrobats which started out in gymnastics and many of the arielest are also professional trained dancers.

In St Louis there’s a local Cirque type circus every June and it is FABULOUS (and MUCH more affordable than Cirque du Soleil!)… we went every year for the few that we lived there and now make a trip up to see it from Nashville. It’s an awesome, intimate performance and geared more toward families than Cirque du Soleil. They have a few animals thrown in there as well, but they are family pet animals… dogs and horses and they do a fabulous job with them. It’d be worth it for you guys to make a quick trip to STL for that… and possibly a new tradition! It’s called Circus Flora… http://www.circusflora.org/