Northgate Mall’s Management Bans Wild-Animal Circuses After PETA Appeal

SRSA Commercial Real Estate Nabs Box of Elephant-Shaped Vegan Chocolates in Thanks for Compassionate Decision

For Immediate Release:
October 30, 2019

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

After PETA urged SRSA Commercial Real Estate not to host wild-animal circuses at its Northgate Mall property, the company confirmed that the Carson & Barnes Circus performance held there earlier this month would be the last. In thanks, PETA is sending the company a box of delicious dairy-free chocolates.

“A life of shackles and shopping malls is no life at all for the sensitive wild animals who are denied everything that’s natural and important to them by money-hungry circuses,” says PETA Foundation Deputy Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Rachel Mathews. “Every company that follows SRSA Commercial Real Estate’s lead helps PETA stamp out these cruel spectacles nationwide.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that Carson & Barnes has racked up more than 100 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, and it agreed to pay a $16,000 federal fine in 2016 after three elephants escaped from a show and ran amok for nearly an hour. Circus trainers force animals to perform tricks by whipping or electroshocking them or (in the case of elephants) striking them with bullhooks—weapons resembling a fireplace poker with a sharp metal hook on one end. Animals used for entertainment commonly suffer from chronic health problems as well as psychological disorders—including neurotic behavior patterns such as swaying, head-bobbing, and pacing—and often die prematurely.

SRSA Commercial Real Estate is part of a long list of companies—including DP Management, CBL & Associates Properties, Macerich, and Simon Property Group—as well as more than 650 malls nationwide that have banned wild-animal acts.

PETA opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.