i'm with peta on this one

i gave up being a member of peta long ago. i didn't like what they were doing OR saying. that never negated how i felt about animals in general OR how i felt about circus animals. once i realized what was going on, i stopped patronizing circuses who used animals (not that i ever attended a lot of them mind you). i also advised friends NOT to attend and told them why.

there is NO need for us to be entertained by animals who (may or may not) have been treated unkindly. no matter what they say, an animal like an elephant is NOT meant to put on a show for humans (i feel the same about aquatic creatures too you know)

PETA, Ringling Bros. at odds over the treatment of baby circus elephants

By David Montgomery

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sammy Haddock started working with elephants when he joined the circus at 20, in 1976, a young man's dream. He walked them, groomed them, cleaned up after them. More than once, he later confessed, he beat them. ¶ Over time, his feelings about elephants grew more tender, especially toward the babies. In 1997 he was hired to work as a handler at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Center for Elephant Conservation, an ambitious program in Florida to breed and preserve endangered Asian elephants. Part of Haddock's job was to help train elephant calves to be circus performers. ¶ He was deeply affected when 8-month-old Riccardo collapsed with leg injuries after tumbling off a tub during pre-training in 2004. Riccardo had to be euthanized. Haddock also began to see things from the point of view of his wife, Millie, an animal lover..........

pic: A baby elephant being trained several years ago to lie down at Ringling's Center for Elephant Conservation. Gary Jacobson, the director of elephant care and head trainer, is holding the elephant's trunk. Jacobson, who has trained 9 of the 22 touring elephants, says the calves are treated as humanely as possible.

Samuel Haddock-Courtesy of PETA

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