The Positive Reinforcement Of Circus Animals

However, recently part of the world had been shocked with the video footage of animals cruelty in an infamous circus. This had arisen a controversy of whether we should use animals in circus or not. Little of us knew what exactly went behind the circus and how the animals were trained, despite the fact that they did give the best entertainment to mankind.

Imagine you are stolen from your family at a young age, forced. Forced to perform routines, and you can not understand why, when you mess up or refuse to perform, you are punished with lacerations or starvation. No one responsible for you cares about your health and will do whatever they can to put as little effort and resources into you. This is the life for many animals forced to participate in circuses. Circus animals, such as elephants, big cats, camels, or bears, live in conditions no human would want to experience. Traveling in small cages, being deprived of experiencing a “natural” life, being forced to perform routines, these are all things circus animals have to go through. A circus is no place for an animal, especially when forced

In the article “PETA urges L.A. to ban all wild animals from circus performances”, Alexia Fernandez highlights the speed with which animal activists go in order to free wild animals from being used in circuses. According to the spokesman for the Ringling Bros, after L.A. “banned circuses from using bullhooks to manage elephants” in 2014, PETA activists demanded that circuses remove wild animals from their performances and Barnum & Bailey Circus begged to differ by arguing that animals in their facilities are taken good care of and are not mistreated (Fernandez, 2016). In conclusion, both sides of the arguments believe that neither is misinformed.

Think about how we will look back on our cruel forms of entertainment in the future. Will we be proud of the way we treated these great animals, with abuse as neglect? Today we turn our heads away from reality and what happens behind the scenes of animal entertainment. However, we can’t turn our heads forever. Around the world, there is so much more to animal entertainment than what meets the eye. These animals have been torn away from their beautiful, natural homes and brought to a prison of concrete. In these prisons, they are beaten, starved and tortured all for our money and entertainment. These animals lives should not be taken from them for us. Our money and happiness should not be worth these animal’s lives. Circus, theme park and zoo animals all suffer from aggression towards trainers, mental disabilities and physical injuries. These animals should not have to suffer any longer.

In the last ten months alone, a prominent animal welfare group called PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has released over seventeen videos on Facebook speaking out against circuses. The most popular of these activist’s videos has been viewed by over 5.5 million people. Animal welfare groups seem mostly concerned with the natural inclination of wildlife. When describing the circus, almost every animal activist group has at some point brought up just how unnatural the behaviors required for performance animals to display appears, when they are entertaining an audience in a show. Niedrich from Michigan State University’s Law department has cited in her article the behaviors of tigers who are naturally fearful of fire jumping through burning hoops, and elephants, the largest land mammal in the world, balancing on tiny pedestals, as examples of unnatural behaviors. This implies that activists like Niedrich define unnatural as; behaviors displayed by animals that goes against wild instincts, or behaviors observed in free roaming animals that lack human involvement. Niedrich specifically stated

Animal captivity has been an ongoing debate for over 60 years. There should be no question about whether animal captivity is wrong. “Hundreds of thousands of wild animals across the world are snatched from natural habitats, forced into captivity and subjected to abuse, both mentally and physically, in the name of entertainment and profit.” (World Animal Protection 1) Places such as the circus use abusive training methods such as, hooks, chains, whips, electric rods, and blunt instruments. (Born Free USA 1) Animals deserve to live freely in the wild. Their freedom is taken away the moment they are put in a cage. When animals are brought into

Imagine being drugged, taken to an unknown place, and being tortured to do actions foreign to your natural behaviour, but knowing it would be much worse if you disobey. That is the life of animals used for entertainment every day. Animals have been used as a means for entertainment for centuries now, not treated with the respect they deserve. The utilization of animals for entertainment may help attract people to learning more about a certain animal, however, manipulating animals for entertainment violates the animal’s rights and freedoms, and, more often than not, animals utilized for entertainment live in detrimental environments, despite people’s endeavors to end it.

Imagine being in a circus ring watching tigers and lions leaping through blazing rings of fire, elephants standing on their heads, and monkeys riding red bicycles for a colossal crowd of screaming, cheering fans. The elephant’s exhausted, worn body is swamped with intricately designed drapes. The sweet, endearing smell of fresh cotton candy and popcorn fills the air with excitement. When the show has reached the grand finale and has come to an end, a trainer arrives with a bull hook and thrusts it into the elephant’s side. Bloody wounds are all over its body from the mistreatment of the circus industry. This is the life that circus animals live each and every day. The animals are mistreated on a routine basis and are crammed into small boxcars for more than three-fourths of their life, serving the public for a moment of entertainment each night. The life of a circus animal is one of pure, unending misery. The use of animals in circus shows is inhumane because they are a threat to public health, and they are mistreated when outside of the public eye.

Although the issues regarding circus cruelty have gained much-needed attention in recent years, circus animals still suffer from lives of confinement, social deprivation and violent methods of training.

Circus animals go through a tremendous amount of stress and are kept in isolation, leading to repetitive habits such as obsessive swaying, bobbing, chewing, sucking, weaving, rocking, and licking. Constant isolation leads to a tremendous amount of boredom as well. Performers have drilled a cruel lifestyle into the animals’ brains, where they are terrified to make mistakes – because mistakes lead to painful punishments. Constant mistreatment towards the animals can and has previously led to outbursts. Although they may just be animals, they have the tendency to build and bottle up rage just like humans do.

My thesis (what will my story show/prove?): Ariana travels on the train and learns that the key to a successful circus is to build a relationship with the animals as well as knowing the line between discipline and abusing.

For several generations, animals have been entertaining humans. From sitting in zoo exhibits to being paraded around in flashy circuses, animals, especially exotic ones, have drawn large audiences. A close look at a ferocious lion or a dancing elephant wearing a headdress is often what captivates people, since these spectacles are often unusual and fascinating. However, for lions to be viewed up close and elephants to dance, they must be held captive and trained for desired behavior. This captivity and training raises a question: is captivity detrimental to global animal ecology and health? Many animal activists claim that captivity is abusive, but animal entertainment organizations, such as zoos, circuses, and animal theme parks, promote environmental health through ecological education of children and adults as well as funding research for conservation.

There are many types of animals used for entertainment such as circuses, dog fighting, zoos, and rodeos. All of these types of entertainment are not natural for these animals which is a form of abuse. Often times they are wild animals that don’t belong in cages and are not able to do things that are in their instinct to do. This is especially true about zoos and circuses. Animals are not able to roam free and instead kept in small cages. Even in optimal settings experts say that it is difficult to provide for the needs of wild animals.(Lemonick) Children should learn to respect animals and not see them as entertainment. People should only support animal free circuses and raise awareness how animals are abused for entertainment.

Training is another concern. Physical punishment has long been the standard training method for animals in circuses. These methods are simply cruel. They include the use of electric prods, whips, and even some animals especially large cats, have their teeth removed. Bears balancing on balls, apes riding motorcycles, elephants standing on two legs are acts that are physically uncomfortable and behaviorally unnatural. Such “performances” do not teach audiences about how animals behave under normal circumstances. Instead, they are often portrayed as ferocious and stupid.

Animals have been a main focus in circus performances around the world for many centuries; however, in recent history, there have been far more regulations put on the use of these creatures, stemming mainly from how they are treated by both their trainers and the circus as a whole. Whether it be on the federal or local and state-level, there has been a definite increase in the questionable legality of America’s circus industry due to the neglect and abuse of the participating animals, courts’ decisions highlighting the true importance of the issue. These rulings make one ask the question: What types of regulations could be put in place in all circuses to ensure that the animals involved are not abused in the process? In the end, many