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Tuesday, 06 June 2006 14:18 |
| Animal-rights activists demonstrate outside of the Asheville Civic Center last Wednesday evening, where the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus was performing. The protesters, who alleged that animals were being abused by the circus, held pictures of elephants chained up in pens and handed out leaflets. Staff Photo by JIM GENARO
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By JIM GENARO
The circus came to town and not everyone in Asheville was happy about it.
About 30 protestors gathered outside the Asheville Civic Center last Wednesday evening to decry what they called cruelty and abuse towards animals in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. A similar protest took place Saturday afternoon.
One
protestor carried a sign that read ?®The Cruelest Show on Earth,?∆ a
clear attack on the national traveling circus, whose motto is ?®The
Greatest Show on Earth.?∆
?®We??re out here to let the public know that wild animals don??t belong
in circuses ?? they belong with their families,?∆ said Leslie Armstrong,
one of the organizers of the protest.
The demonstrators handed out leaflets and shouted their messages to people entering the Civic Center to see the show.
 | | Several parents expressed displeasure about the protest. |
However, their shouts were often drowned out by the call of a circus
barker set up outside the building, who was promoting programs and
circus DVDs over a megaphone.
Though both the protesters and the circus audience members were
generally nonconfrontational, a number of parents gave the protestors
angry looks.
When asked about whether such protests upset children, Armstrong
replied, ?®Actually, what they see in the cirus upsets them ... or
should upset them.?∆
Violent implements are used to compel animals to do tricks, she argued, including ?®bullhooks, whips and chains.?∆
Armstrong also noted that an unnamed University of North Carolina
professor has argued that ?®by taking your children to the circus, you
teach them that it??s okay to dominate another living being.?∆
The Ringling
Bros. circus denies allegations that animals are abused, noting on its
web site that it ?®exceeds all federal animal welfare standards set by
the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Animal Welfare Act.?∆
However, activists expressed skepticism about such claims.
When asked whether Armstrong had made any direct contact with the
circus, she said she had not, but added, ?®I??ve read a lot of their
comments ... They??re a for-profit organization and they put out their
propaganda.?∆
However, she said she has spoken to animal trainers directly. ?®They all
told me that the only way you can get these animals to do these tricks
is through domination and abuse.?∆
Ringling Brothers has had two baby elephants die in the past two years,
Armstrong said, resulting in investigations by the US Department of
Agriculture, which regulates the treatment of performing animals.
In both cases, she added, the circus settled the charges out of court,
paying large sums of money to avoid the negative publicity of a
citation.
Carolina Animal Action, the group that sponsored the protest, has also
rented space on two billboards in Asheville to get its message out.
The billboards depict an elephant chained to the ground.
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