PETA accuses circus of abusing elephants
After working as an animal-care provider for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for two months, Archele Hundley said she had to quit.
After working as an animal-care provider for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for two months, Archele Hundley said she had to quit.
"The abuse I witnessed was too unbearable to stay," she said, recalling one instance in which she saw an elephant beaten until it bled. "There wasn't a day that went by I didn't see abuse of elephants," she added.
Hundley, of West Virginia, traveled to Philadelphia yesterday for a news conference called by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to denounce the alleged abuse.
Gathered at the Four Points Sheraton in Center City, PETA officials said an investigator for the organization worked undercover, from January through June, documenting mistreatment of elephants and other animals.
PETA then showed video footage of handlers' hitting elephants.
"These are not things they would do in front of the public," said Daphna Nachminovitch, PETA vice president of cruelty investigations. "Elephants don't do anything to provoke this. They're beaten just because [the trainers] can."
Ringling issued a statement calling PETA's abuse allegations "misinformation" and stressing that Ringling Bros. is a "licensed traveling exhibitor" and is compliant with federal laws.
"Ringling Bros. also believes that the video is questionable in its context regarding the portrayal of its animal handlers," the statement read.
The video footage released by PETA shows trainers striking elephants' trunks, faces, ears and legs with whips and bullhooks - batlike fiberglass or wooden sticks with sharpened metal hooks.
It does not appear that the animals do anything to provoke the beatings, and in some instances, trainers can be heard shouting and cursing at the animals while hitting them.
Nachminovitch said that bullhooks are legal animal-training instruments, but that how trainers in the footage use them is abusive.
"These people know exactly where to sink [the hook]," she said, adding that elephant skin is as sensitive as human skin.
PETA recently filed criminal complaints in seven states, including one with District Attorney Lynne Abraham's office involving alleged abuse of elephants that occurred when the circus visited the Wachovia Spectrum last May, Nachminovitch said.
The organization also filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania SPCA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Yesterday, Dave Sacks, a spokesman for the USDA, said the agency would investigate the allegations.
He said he was unable to comment on any prior complaints against Ringling Bros., but recalled a case in 2001 in which an investigation into the death of an elephant in its care led the agency to impose new training stipulations.
