Billboard Calls Out Circus: Abusers All Claim to ‘Love’ Their Victims

PETA Targets Circus World’s ‘Summer of Luv’ Season, During Which Elephants and Tigers Will Be Forced to Perform Under Threat of Violence

For Immediate Release:
May 17, 2019

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

“Abusers Always Say They ‘Love’ Their Victims. Animal Circuses Are Animal Abuse.” That’s the message on a new PETA billboard that just went up in Baraboo, where Circus World Museum will host animal acts in its “Summer of Luv” season.

The billboard features a photograph from a standard circus training session, in which baby elephants who have been prematurely taken away from their mothers are tied down with ropes, electrically shocked, and beaten with bullhooks (weapons that resemble a fireplace poker with a sharp hook on one end) to teach them to obey out of fear of punishment.

“There’s nothing to love about whipping tigers and beating baby elephants until their spirits break,” says PETA Foundation Deputy Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Rachel Mathews. “PETA is urging everyone to stay away from Circus World this summer unless it stops hosting abusive animal acts.”

During training sessions in 2017, Ryan Easley—Circus World’s big-cat exhibitor—was caught violently whipping tigers, one of whom was reportedly struck 31 times. Scheduled to appear at Circus World beginning this week is Carson & Barnes Circus, whose head trainer was caught on video viciously attacking elephants with a bullhook—including Becky, who will be forced to perform at Circus World Museum through September—and shocking them with an electric prod, causing them to scream in pain.

The billboard is located on Highway 136, just south of South Boulevard (near Walmart and Menards).

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.