R.I.P. The Greatest Show on Earth

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It would help if you actually made an argument, instead of merely repeating your premise over and over. Why is it cruel to train elephants to do tricks but not cruel to teach dogs to do tricks? You're apparently talking to an actual handler, what makes you so sure you know better?

An appropriately sized one in appropriate circumstances? Sure, I mean they use those noose looking things to catch out of control animals all the time, and that looks at least as nasty as the way trainers actually use the bull hook, which seems to me to function similarly to spurs on a horse.

Actually, Mr. D. , I've seen how they train elephants and its horrible. I never want to see it again.

I remember seeing a news story either on 60 Minutes or 20/20 about that Circus that told how they train the elephants and I had to quit watching. They whip them horribly and do other things. I don't even want to think about it.

I can't even watch this.

Elephants are not meant for that. They are meant to be in their own habitat. It makes me so angry! I can't discuss it anymore it upsets me so much. There's more videos on you tube for those interested in seeing more abuse.

It hasn't so far, but I'll try again. Making elephants do unnatural tricks for human amusement is cruel. I don't understand why it is such a hard concept to grasp.
I understand that the "actual handler" you mention has an agenda of not wanting to accept that his behavior was cruel and I'm sorry to say it was. He may not have hit the elephants, but he participated in keeping them in an unnatural and exploitative environment.
I realize humans keep animals for all kinds of selfish reasons: food, service, companions, however, there is no justifiable reason for the cruelty of the circus.

I wish I hadn't even read this thread and looked at that video because now I can't get it out of my mind and I'm physically ill. It's going to haunt me for days. It makes me remember this other video about how cows were abused too before they went to slaughter. I just want to take a whip and beat those men to death! Those animals are defenseless. A big elephant beat down so much they are afraid of a small human being that they could kill in an instant! You wouldn't want me in the same room with those people - they wouldn't leave alive. I physically feel awful.

not talking to anybody but me

that's how it's decided we roll control the mind by controlling the zeitgeist, easypiecy
now we(humans) are so caged we barely connect to what's not, howdy pet-identifyers,
holy pet owners i mean

evolutionairy some animals chose the protection of controlled breeding
almost like we did

ofcourse excess is excess

but animal labor is sustainable and employment-friendly

but BB don't want the people in control, or in ownership of anything but gadgets of fashions

now the gullible pet-owners and vegy-allies are the pawns in suppressing the rights of HUMANS to hold animals for economic purposes, but it's ok for state-owned big-farms because there's eventually no one accountable

that's how the central scrutinizer's set up to work
humans are guilty but entities not

What does this even mean?

Is that a way of trying to avoid discussion; it's not necessary as the ambiguity of your post makes it hard to know what you are saying.

Idk. Those animals are so huge and their hides are so tough and thick, are they really being injured?

Grasping that concept is not difficult, and I am simply asking for some intellectual honesty in relation to anything and everything "unnatural" ever expected from any animal for any reason. There is nothing any more inherently cruel about having animals doing tricks for the entertainment of humans than in having animals doing tricks for the service of humans. Either it is okay to train animals to do unnatural things or it is not.


This is the first I have heard any such allegation against me and my only agenda here is to keep trying to keep this thread from being hijacked by activist rhetoric at the expense of intellectual honesty (even if done unwittingly).


There is actually no justifiable reason for animal cruelty anywhere, not just at the circus, and the Ringling circus is *not* being closed because of animal cruelty. Can you possibly recognize and acknowledge those actual facts? And in reality, the only "public outcry" in relation to Ringling elephants was heard at the ticket office when people stopped purchasing tickets after the elephants had been removed from the show. Understand?

Last edited by leejosepho on 16 Jan 2017, 8:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

I disagree. I think the reason for their trick performance is very important. A dog helping a blind person to gain mobility is worthwhile. Circus entertainment is not.
Also, there is the issue of the degree of cruelty. A dog acting as companion and guide for a blind person is in keeping with dog nature, so it is not an awful imposition on them. A lab monkey is taken totally out of it's environment and is subjected to medical experiment; this is an awful imposition on them, but it is a necessary cruelty because the medical knowledge gained is of substantial value.
The circus elephant suffers a great imposition, but for no marked gain. The amusement of children doesn't cut it. It is gratuitous cruelty with no moral offset.

I am definitely not an advocate for training elephants to do anything either for entertainment or for service (such as pulling logs from the forest), but I can tell you the handling techniques viewable in that video do not cause actual physical injury. We can argue that nuns should never use rulers to crack students on the head and we can cry out against that if we wish, but we cannot say the students are actually physically harmed by the crack of a ruler. The same is true in that video: Some of those handlers are using elephant-sized rulers to crack the animals into line where only voice commands should be sufficient, but those elephants are not actually being physically injured by their doing so.

Obviously we disagree about what constitutes abuse. Not much point continuing.