UniverSoul Circus Will Not Be Welcomed Back to Turner Field

PETA Sends Developer Elephant-Shaped Vegan Chocolates as Thanks

For Immediate Release:
March 20, 2017

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

PETA has sent some delicious and appropriately shaped vegan chocolates to Carter, the developer that took over Turner Field this year, as a thank-you for pledging to make last month’s UniverSoul Circus performances the last to occur on the property.

Carter confirmed to PETA that the circus will not return, after the group pointed out that the elephants used by UniverSoul—who are provided by Larry Carden—are routinely lame, likely as a result of chaining and confinement. In 2015, Carden was charged with abusive behavior toward an elephant during a UniverSoul performance at Turner Field. For years, the circus used a tiger act leased from Mitchel Kalmanson, an exhibitor who has been cited by the federal government for failing to provide animals with basic veterinary care, depriving them of the opportunity to exercise, and confining them to foul-smelling, maggot-infested trucks.

“UniverSoul drags chained and caged animals across the country, forcing them to perform tricks that are pointless, uncomfortable, and even painful,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Rachel Mathews. “Today, venues are rejecting wild-animal acts, and Turner Field has done the right thing by saying no to circuses that use wild animals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that the public’s changing attitudes about the use of animals and a decade of declining ticket sales recently prompted Ringling Bros. circus to announce that it’s going out of business this May. The public’s changing attitudes have also led numerous venues, including more than 600 malls across the U.S., have prohibited circuses with wild animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.