The Positive Reinforcement Of Circus Animals

Title: Should animals be used in circuses for entertainment purpose? For years animals have been used in circuses for performances to entertain audiences. While acknowledging the fact that many of the circus animals are not seriously maltreated, this essay holds the view that training animals for performances in circuses should be banned since it is inhumane as it deprives animals of their freedoms and potentially poses threat to both their physical and psychological behaviours. To commence with, circuses are unlikely to provide adequate spacing to circuses animals, especially when they are touring around. Unlike those animals kept in zoos, not only the enclosure sizes of the animals has to be compromised for their portability, the environments

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.

Animals are not actors, they belong in the wild with their families. “Thousands of animals are forced to perform silly and confusing tricks under the threat of physical punishment” according to PETA website. “ Animals Are NOT Ours To Eat, Wear, Experiment on, Use for Entertainment, or Abuse in Any Other Way.” In circus`, often elephants perform tricks like balancing on their head, sitting on a platform, balancing on a platform and other “cool” tricks. While training an elephant, trainers use electric prods, bullhooks and blow torches to get the animal to do what the trainer wants. Also, when tigers fail to learn or refuse to perform a trick they are often starved of food and not given water as punishment. Many people own a dog, so would it be okay for someone to beat and punish their dog to get them to sit? Lions, tigers, and elephants are no different. Animals attend multiple abusive training practices a day which causes pain and stress and gives the animals no value or right in their life. Zoo`s on the other hand are prisons to hundreds and thousands of animals just for the enjoyment of paying visitors. These animals lose control of their lives and aren't able to fulfill their full potential. Some animals who should be living alone are caged with others and often, an animal`s predator is right next door. Sometimes zoos teach animals tricks for shows, but as an animal, their brains don't work like ours, and are beaten when they either don't do the trick right or won't do it. Often you may see an ad in the paper or a commercial on tv about an upcoming show or circus, and the animals are doing tricks and people are smiling, this shows people that the animals and people are having fun and they should support it. This

Animals are used for entertainment, “Animals aren’t actors, spectacles to imprison and gawk at, or circus clowns. Yet thousands of these animals are forced to

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.

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.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus has recently declared the end of their career and disbanded the circus. Since the disbandment an ongoing discussion concerning the circus and its ethics has been widely discussed by many different groups; but disagreement can be most strongly seen between the discourse of animal welfare groups, and the circus performers themselves. The topics being addressed is how these different populations perceives the events surrounding the circus’s disbandment and what is actually more beneficial for the circus animals and the performers in the long run after the greatest show on Earth is over. The discontinuities often seen among these two groups when the circus is discussed are: the languages of unnatural behavior, abuse, the description of culture, sports, art, along with the

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.

They are taken away from their families which hurts them emotionally. They are raised by humans who are trained to care for them, but they cannot substitute for the love of their mates. In addition, some of the animals that are born in a circus environment do not understand who they are or what group they belong to. For instance, if you take a tiger or elephant that has been living in the circus for most of their lifetime and bring it back to their original habitat, they will not be able to survive. They will not understand what is to hunt or to survive in the wild. Bentham explained, “You should be motivated to act, not for the sake of your own pleasure, but also for the sake of others’ pleasures, too.” A circus can entertain large crowds, but at the end of the day, circus representatives are taking animals from their natural habitats to pleasure others and they have no right to do so. Ringling Bros. And Barnum & Bailey’s circus made a great ethical decision to support the animals’ rights and support that animals should not be used for entertainment anymore.

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.

The circus industry claims that it only trains animals to do the types of tricks they might naturally perform in the wild. Costumed bears lying on their backs spinning giant balls, tigers jumping through flames, or elephants walking on their hind legs then balancing on their heads, are not natural behaviors. When circuses portray unnatural and inaccurate images of how wild animals live and act, in such an unrealistic context, this creates a greater disconnect between people and wild animals, promoting the notion that it's acceptable, even enjoyable to exploit animals for entertainment. Circuses perpetuate an outdated attitude that wild animals are ours to use at any cost to their welfare-an attitude that PAWS, other animal protection groups, wildlife organizations and zoos work tirelessly to counteract through outreach and education.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite childhood memories was going to a Ringling Bros. Circus; I watched in amazement as large white tigers jumped through a blazing ring of fire. I thought it was one the most incredible things I witnessed at the time, but being so young and naïve I had no knowledge of the truth about what was really going on. The truth of the matter is that these wild animals do not willingly throw themselves through a loop of fire for the enjoyment of it. They are forced to perform these insane acts through punishments during training. Not only this, but these animals have to perform day to day with little breaks, and constant traveling. Though these are serious problems, actions can be taken to stop animal performance within

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.

The smell of cotton candy and popcorn in the air and screams of happy children filling your ears. You see elephants, tigers and a whole variety of exotic animals performing tricks to stun the audience. However, as the circus packs up for the next city, many people are blindsided to what happens behind the scenes. Some argue that circuses are fun and lighthearted. However, the sad truth is that the poor animals you just saw perform a magnificent show, are being held in a unjustful state of captivity. Circuses can cause damage to animals, being kept in cages can cause mental problems, and animals are forced to do their unusual activity. Therefore, circuses are not good.

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