Will Decatur Be the Next City to Block Appearance by Suffering Elephant?

PETA Appeal Prompts Gainesville, Denton to Prevent Lame and Arthritic Elephant From Performing in Circus

For Immediate Release:
November 4, 2014

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

PETA is calling on the city of Decatur to follow the lead of other area cities and refuse to allow a suffering elephant named Nosey to perform with the Family Fun Circus tomorrow at the Wise County Fairgrounds. Gainesville refused to grant a permit for Nosey’s participation in the circus this week, and officials with the city of Denton have also assured PETA that it will not allow the elephant act after learning from PETA that elephant exhibitor Hugo Liebel—who has racked up nearly 200 citations for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA)—forces her to perform despite her evident painful lameness and arthritis.

“By refusing to allow Hugo Liebel to force Nosey to perform, the cities of Gainesville and Denton have taken a stand against cruelty to animals, and PETA is calling on Decatur to do the same,” says PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders. “PETA’s motto reads, in part, that ‘animals are not ours to use for entertainment,’ and the suffering that this arthritic elephant endures every time this man drags her in front of an audience shows why.”

Liebel’s history of violating the AWA includes chaining Nosey so tightly that she could barely move and repeatedly denying her adequate veterinary care. After reviewing 20 years’ worth of federal documents related to Nosey as well as a decade’s worth of photographs, an independent veterinarian and elephant expert called Nosey’s case “the worst, most prolonged, documented example of an uncorrected case of suffering and abuse in an elephant I have ever reviewed.”

Despite this, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has failed to take action in Nosey’s behalf, and Liebel continues to exhibit her across the country. Newsroom actor Olivia Munn recently penned a scathing letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and True Blood‘s Kristin Bauer called the USDA about the agency’s failure to help Nosey. Earlier this year, both the Bourbonnais Friendship Festival in Illinois and the Buy For Less supermarket chain in Oklahoma also canceled scheduled appearances by Liebel.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.