Teed Off! PETA Confronts Hadi Shrine Golfers Over Circus Abuse

For Immediate Release:
August 7, 2023

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Hadi Shriners encountered an unexpected hazard during their annual golf outing today when PETA supporters armed with signs proclaiming, “Hadi Shriners: End Cruel Animal Acts!” confronted Potentate Randy Dierlam outside Oak Meadow Country Club, urging him to stop forcing tormented animals to perform in Shrine circuses. Video and photos of the encounter are available here.

The Hadi Shrine Circus is among the last remaining shows still exploiting wild animals who are confined to small crates, kept in shackles, and deprived of any semblance of a natural life. The circus has used elephants from Carson & Barnes, whose head trainer was caught on video viciously attacking an elephant with a bullhook—a weapon that resembles a fireplace poker with a sharp hook on one end—until she screamed in pain.

“Violence and abuse are par for the course at Hadi Shrine Circus shows, in which wild animals are forced to perform demeaning tricks under threat of punishment,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Hadi Shriners to end their support of these horrifying animal acts, as other shrines have already done.”

Two top sponsors of last year’s Hadi Shrine Circus shows—global health and nutrition company DSM and the world’s largest paint and coatings manufacturer, PPG Industries—confirmed to PETA that they had cut ties with the circus. The Sherwin-Williams Company also advised its local business groups to refrain from sponsoring the Hadi Shrine Circus in the future.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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