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Life Accomplishments Of A Wild Elephant

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On April 13, 1796, Barnum and Bailey Circus purchased a two-year old female, Asian elephant for one thousand dollars. This is the first of many elephants that were purchased for the two largest circuses in America, Barnum and Bailey and Ringling Bros Circus. While today there are only around sixty nine elephants that are still involved in the circus act, there was at one time approximately three hundred and five. The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and does not distinguish between zoos and circuses. This implies that the main goals of the zoos and circuses is the same, to use animals commercially and public exhibition. Former Ringling Bros. employees Archele Hundley, Margaret Tom, and Robert Tom Jr. had …show more content…

Elephants can walk up to forty miles in the wild, but hardly get enough exercise to keep them alive in circuses and zoos. They are forced to sleep and walk on concrete floors and are often on train cars most of their life. This can cause arthritis, foot abscesses, and other foot and joint dangers.
The average lifespan of a wild elephant is anywhere from sixty to seventy years old. Because of chronic health problems such as tuberculosis, arthritis, and foot abscesses, captive elephants are lucky if they live forty years. The oldest captive elephant, Peaches, died at the age of fifty-five in 2005 at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Furthermore, attempting the breed captive elephants has been highly unsuccessful. Of the five elephants born in 2003, three of them died within the first twelve months.
Aside from humans, elephants have no natural enemies. When left alone, elephants are peaceful creatures and not aggressive. Naturally, elephants do not stand on their hind legs or on their heads or perform tricks you see at the circus. In order to make an animal perform an act they do not understand, you must literally beat them into submission. This practices are demeaning, unnatural and cause fear in the elephants. They are routinely beaten, shocked, abused, and chained for days at a

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