Kategorie: Animals

Following the adoption of new state regulations that prohibit circuses from using endangered species and effectively ban elephant rides, PETA fired off a letter today to the potentate of the Kosair Shrine, Jon S. Dawson, calling on the Kosair Shrine Circus to go animal-free—just as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus already has. Shrine circuses are among the very last remaining shows that still deprive wild animals—including elephants and big cats—of any semblance of a natural life, carting them around in small crates and keeping them in shackles when they’re not being forced to perform.

“All animals deserve freedom from cramped cages and protection from performing tricks under the threat of violence,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Rachel Mathews. “PETA is calling on the Kosair Shrine Circus to embrace the modern, cruelty-free future of entertainment by showcasing dazzling displays of human talent, rather than exploiting animals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and notes that the new regulations also prohibit acts featuring dangerous exotic animals at state and county fairs. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Dawson follows.

May 26, 2022

Jon S. Dawson

Illustrious Potentate

Kosair Shrine

Re: An Animal-Free Future for the Kosair Shrine Circus

Dear Mr. Dawson:

I’m writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)—PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally—regarding the future of the Kosair Shrine Circus. Last week, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus officially confirmed that it’s returning in 2023 without animals. Will your organization follow its lead?

There’s no better time for the Kosair Shrine Circus to reinvent itself as an animal-free show. Earlier this month, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources adopted new regulations prohibiting circuses from using endangered species and banning elephant rides. This means that your shows can no longer use animals such as Shere Khan, a bony tiger who was forced to perform at your circus in 2021 even though he had not been properly evaluated by a veterinarian in a year, according to federal records. Nor can you use Betty, Cindy, Janice, or Vickie, the aging Asian elephants who appeared in performances in February. Decades of living in chains and performing tricks for Shrine circuses have taken a terrible toll on these elephants. Janice and Betty were recently filmed swaying in distress and struggling through performances.

Kenneth Feld, CEO Ringling’s parent company, told the New York Times, “Ringling has always evolved: Logically, in order to be successful for 146 years, you constantly have to change.” The Kosair Shrine should follow this advice. People now understand that animals are complex individuals with lives of their own who should never be whipped, caged, or chained for human entertainment.

Now is your chance at reinvention. The circus’s willing human performers will dazzle audiences with no animals exploited in the process. Will the Kosair Shrine Circus return in 2023 without animals?

Thank you for your consideration.

Very truly yours,

Rachel Mathews, Esq.

Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement

This Memorial Day weekend, travelers who are headed in the direction of the notorious Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation will get a warning from PETA plastered at local gas stations, urging them to steer clear of the roadside zoo. The can’t-be-missed pleas feature an image of Lucie, a long-suffering lion at the facility where distressed and overweight animals languish in cramped cages.

“Wildlife imprisoned at this outfit have virtually nothing to do but walk in circles and stare out from their enclosures,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Debbie Metzler. “PETA urges everyone to help Lucie and the other animals at Kirshner by leaving this roadside hellhole out of their vacation plans.”

Facility owner Roberta Kirshner has received at least one citation during every one of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) last six inspections. She has been cited repeatedly for failing to provide animals with any way to cool off in triple-digit summer temperatures, and the USDA previously cited Kirshner for failing to provide then-cub Lucie—who was severely lame, likely in pain, and unable to stand—with adequate veterinary care. Just last year, a leopard attacked a volunteer and escaped from his enclosure, prompting a “critical” citation from the USDA and a $1,800 penalty from the state’s workplace safety agency.

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

Records obtained by PETA reveal that a marmoset’s escape at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst (UMass) went unreported to federal agencies—and that the mishandling of primates has only intensified since then. Today, PETA filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), urging the agencies to investigate the school’s possible violations of animal welfare regulations and guidelines as well as its failure to comply with reporting requirements.

The newly released reports describe a marmoset’s escape from a transfer box and his injury of another monkey before staff could catch him in 2017, but the school never alerted NIH’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare or the USDA, as required. In 2018, there was a similar escape—two monkeys broke free from a transport box, resulting in injuries.

“These incidents demonstrate a pattern of incompetence, dishonesty, and marmoset suffering,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on the USDA to investigate UMass, before the school’s next monkey escape turns deadly.”

According to the documents obtained by PETA, the school also received a USDA citation after a marmoset escaped from a restraint device: A handler injured the monkey so badly during recapture that the animal’s tail had to be amputated. The school’s long history of animal welfare violations includes an instance in which a marmoset was severely burned with hand warmers as he was recovering from surgery—leading to his death—and another in which experimenters failed to give necessary pain relief to several hundred mice who had just undergone surgery. Mice have also drowned, birds have starved to death, and zebrafish have died from overheating.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—has been contacted by numerous UMass alumni and donors concerned about the university’s treatment of primates in its laboratories. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.