BEHIND THE STAGE
Trainers get wild animals to perform tricks through domination. They break their spirit by tying them down and routinely beating, poking, shocking and jabbing them with tools such as bullhooks. A bullhook is a sharp metal hook attached to a long pole that is used to inflict pain and suffering on elephants to gain control over them. From the time they are young, elephants are taught to fear the bullhook and thus perform out of fear and pain.
According to a former Ringling Bros. elephant trainer, baby elephants are violently pulled away from their mothers at 18-24 months by being tied up rodeo-style. They are then tied down by all four legs in a barn for up to 23 hours a day until they successfully break them down. This can take up to six months. "Sometimes they would start crying when they saw their mothers brought in from outside. Babies often had rope lesions from straining against the ropes..." (Samuel Haddock)
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Animals in transport
When they are not training or performing, "virtually 96 percent of their lives are spent in chains or cages" (PAWS). According to the Humane Society of the United States, "Animals used by circuses spend much of their lives in small, often dirty cages, barely able to turn around. They may be shipped in trucks and railway cars without heat or air conditioning and are often are deprived of food and water for extended periods" (HSUS). There was one case where a lion from the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus was found dead in his boxcar after traveling through the Mojave desert in a "poorly ventilated boxcar without being checked or given water" (Global Action Network).