PETA Statement: Elephant Birth at Endangered Ark Foundation

For Immediate Release:
August 3, 2020

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Hugo, Okla. –

Below, please find a statement from PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Rachel Mathews in response to the just-announced birth of an elephant calf at the Endangered Ark Foundation, a misleadingly named, highly exploitative elephant breeding, training, and “retirement” facility for Carson & Barnes Circus, whose elephant training is managed by notorious elephant abuser Tim Frisco:

Every elephant born into a lifetime of punishment, pain, chains, and exploitation in a circus or roadside zoo is a tragedy. PETA is calling on Carson & Barnes Circus and the Endangered Ark Foundation to ensure that this was 50-year-old Whimpy’s final pregnancy and to show a modicum of kindness by letting her vulnerable calf stay by her side instead of using him as a circus prop.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that Carson & Barnes has been fined over $20,000 and cited for more than 100 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, including for failing to provide animals with adequate shelter and veterinary care. In 2015, the circus was cited after a hippo and an elephant languished for months, losing weight, before they died.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.