I. Introduction
“Elephants . . . are the pegs on which the circus is hung.”
Elephants are the largest living land animals in the world today. An animal is a living organism, other than a human, that feeds on organic matter typically having a specialized sense, nervous system and a rapid response to interaction. Circuses have used elephants for entertainment since the 18th century.
Elephants in circuses are held in captivity and are not free to do many of his or her natural behaviors. Captivity restrains an elephant’s natural movement, feeding habits, hiding habits, and limits the elephant’s social interaction skills with other elephants. Elephants in circuses are forced to perform acts that are unnatural to the elephant’s normal movements. Elephants in circuses are beaten into submission until the elephant is tamed and able to be led.
Circus owners claim that using elephants in performances are educational. Since elephants are not natives to North America the only opportunities a person had to observe elephants were going to a circus performance or zoo. However, a person can learn about elephants through documentaries, You Tube videos, books and
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The laws that regulate the treatment of circus elephants are: The Animal Welfare Act, The Endangered Species Act and State and local laws. But, these laws for the mostly, do not specifically address circus elephants. There is little case law concerning the welfare of circus elephants because animal activist groups lack standing to sue circus owners. Most plaintiffs are not able to prove that the injury is “arguably within the zone of interest” to be protected under the statute. However, there are several law review articles, reports from official government agencies, animal activist groups, news reporters, and former elephant trainers that engage in the discussion of the mistreatment of circus
According to the beginning of the video, it states, “Scientists now believe [elephants are] among the world’s most cognitively advanced animals.” The outcome of this experiment was so positive that now elephants are one of the world's most advanced animals. However, this took the scientists by surprise. Subsequently, it also states in the video, “Elephants recently aced an IQ test with two of them even figuring out shortcuts the researches hadn't thought of.” This in particular, was most outstanding due to to the fact that the researchers didn’t even think of the shortcut that the elephants made. This really proves that elephants are wise mammals; possibly, even wiser than us humans. To conclude, it states in the video, “Scientists say the test highlights not only the intelligence of individual elephants but also their ability to cooperate and understand the value of teamwork.” This here exhibits that the elephants understand that certain tasks need to be done with the assistance of others, not just by themselves. Thus, as the video illustrates the elephants are more brainy than we
Each author has the same purpose in writing about the elephant studies and there are many similarities and differences in which the elephants behaved.
Largely known as the biggest animal on the planet, elephant is always considered human’ friendliest wild friend. We have coexisted from the beginning of time, working, sharing this increasingly overcrowded land. In the crazy and fast pacing world of animals and the endless fight over the places in the food chain , elephant is still supposed to be the calmest because, according to some children’s book, those problems are too small compared to the size of the animal. However, it seems that this theory is only true in the childhood fantasy. In “An Elephant Crackup?”, Charles Siebert drills on the downfall of elephants. He gives a depiction of the recent raging and violent acts of the elephants, and presents an educated and almost unexpected
...s unharmed. Elephants were a huge attraction at the games and often performed spectacular acts such as dancing and tightrope walking. The audience was thrilled by trained animals defying the laws of nature including the above and also amazing acts such as leopard walking peacefully with antelopes and crocodiles allowing boys to ride them in the water. It was also found that Emperor Elagabalus enjoyed driving a chariot harnessed to lions, tiger and stags and then allowing these trained animals to run loose in his home.
Elephants should not be killed because they help the environment. Elephants actually help the environment by acting like a bulldozer and knocking down dead trees that would stand dormant otherwise. Africa does not have the time or money to bulldoze these dead trees that take up land that could be used for some well needed shelter. There are too many homeless people in Africa to have dead trees taking up in some cases large parts of land. Elephants work as construction equipment that Africa does not have the money for. Without these elephants dead trees would take up many miles of that that could be houses sheltering the poor population of Africa.
Elephants, although they are very large animals, are known to be graceful and sociable. They are among one of the most intelligent, sensitive animals on the planet, perhaps even approaching human intelligence and emotion. But lately, their behavior has changed. When we hear stories of elephants being violent we have to remember that they are wild animals. The fact that we have become so used to seeing them around people does not mean that as a whole they have become domesticated. According to many sources cited by Charles Siebert in his essay “An Elephant Crackup?” one of the reasons given to explain this weird change of behavior was “the precipitous collapse of elephant culture.”
Cohn, Jeffrey P. "Do Elephants Belong In Zoos?" Bioscience 56.9 (2006): 714-717. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Poachers have intoxicated water where the elephants drink from, they have used automatic weapons, and have even used poisoned arrows to kill them. These enormous creatures are gentle, and are being killed for their tusks. This is greed at it’s finest. Poachers have not yet to be stopped and about 92 elephants are being killed everyday. Since this is illegal, ironically when someone smuggles ivory in the United States they only do about 25 months in most cases. Poachers only do only two years of prison time, but an elephant is completely dead because of this. Sadly, poachers are still very hard to find and have not yet been brought up to
Attention getter: Lion, tigers, and bears, oh my! When the circus comes rolling into town, many people are excited to go and that is all that is talked about; about the clowns, the trapeze artists, the ring leader, the elephants and all the other marvelous wonders of the circus. But would you all still be excited to go if you knew the truth about the circus and the animal trainers of how they treat the animals? Because in reality, for our spirits to raise at the circus, they break the spirits of all the animals, especially the elephants.
The article “Animals Used as Entertainment” lists rodeos, circuses, bullfighting, horse racing, cockfighting, dog fighting, and zoos as examples of the many ways animals are used in entertainment. Circuses and zoos are the two most relevant forms of animal mistreatment. Both of these are sources of entertainment for children and adults. Zoos declare that the...
Currently there are three main legislations affecting and protecting the welfare of wild animals in travelling circuses, The Welfare of Wild Animals in Travelling Circuses (England) Regulations 2012, the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the performing Animals (regulation) Act 1925, (DEFRA,2013; Rees,2013). The legislations in place recognise that both wild a...
M. Jaynes. “How Circus Elephants Are Sometimes Abused By Their Trainers.” News and Issue: Animal Rights. 11 Oct. 1994. Academic OneFile. web. 18 Nov. 2013.
National Geographic did a study on more than 4,500 wild and captive African and Asian elephants. Their study showed that elephants live about 16-18 years in captivity, while in the wild they can live upwards of 50 years. This is a difference too great to be ignored. This further proves the notion that zoos are for humans, not animals. No animal should be subjected to a place where they live thirty or more years less just because humans want them there for
Since the beginning of the modern day circus in the early 20th century millions of Americans have enjoyed the performances by both the people and the animals that perform for our entertainment. However, the audience is blinded by shock and awe of the show from what really happens behind the curtain. Animal cruelty, poor living conditions, and lack of legal regulation scars the animals and becomes very dangerous to the overall health of the animals and those who are around them. The mistreatment of animals in circuses has been occurring for far too long, and new laws need to be implemented in an effort to prevent future acts of cruelty toward these animals.
71% of the circus animals observed by the study suffered medical problems.("Animal abuse facts and Stats") The use of animals in circuses should be banned because of the credulity towards the animals. Circuses use the method of physical abuse to train the animals. Some circuses also use food and water deprivation to make them do the routines. Wild animals should not be treated poorly. Watching exotic animals do tricks is amusing to people.