WOMAN AND MAN STRIP NAKED IN ASHEVILLE TO PROTEST CIRCUS CRUELTY

Body-Painted Activists Bare All, Including Truth Behind Circus Claims

For Immediate Release:
June 3, 2004

Contact:
Kayla Rae Worden 757-622-7382

Asheville, N.C. — Confined to a cage with their nude bodies painted like tigers and a banner above them reading, "Wild Animals Don’t Belong Behind Bars," a woman and man will protest Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus’ treatment of animals and the "sucker statements" about animal care that the circus issues at every stop:

Date: Friday, June 4
Time: 12 noon sharp
Place: In front of Vance Monument in Pack Square, intersection of Biltmore and Patton avenues

PETA is incensed over Ringling’s claim that its elephants and other animals are "well treated," and the group has the facts to disprove it. In order to force wild animals to perform stressful and often painful acts, trainers use sharp, metal bullhooks, which they dig into the sensitive skin behind animals’ ears and legs, as well as whips, muzzles, and electric prods, as PETA’s undercover video footage clearly shows. A PETA investigator obtained the footage of a circus "animal care director" and longtime elephant trainer yelling, "Sink that hook into ’em," "Hurt ’em," and "Make ’em scream!" and viciously attacking, shocking with an electric prod, and cursing at endangered Asian elephants. The bullhooks are wielded with both hands and full force to inflict maximum pain, and the elephants scream while recoiling from the trainers’ assaults. Perhaps the most damning statement of all is the head trainer’s warning to other trainers that their punishments must be severe as the elephants cannot be hit "in front of a thousand people."

PETA also has U.S. government documents showing that Ringling has repeatedly failed to meet minimum standards for animal care as established by the federal Animal Welfare Act. One government report shows that Ringling paid $20,000 to settle charges of failing to provide veterinary care to a dying baby elephant. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has also cited Ringling for failure to possess records of veterinary care, failure to provide animals with sufficient space and exercise, and endangering tigers by failing to properly maintain their enclosures and leaving them vulnerable to extreme heat. In less than two years, two baby elephants died, a caged tiger was shot to death, a horse used in the circus despite a chronic medical condition died, and a wild-caught sea lion was found dead in her transport container.

"This cruelty, these beatings are what the circus is desperate to hide from the public," says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. "These animals are not volunteers. They have been deprived of their precious freedom and beaten for a lifetime of cheap tricks."

For information on the many circuses that use only willing, paid human performers, such as Cirque du Soleil, the New Pickle Family Circus, Neil Goldberg’s Cirque, and Cirque Éos, and to view undercover footage of animals being abused in other circuses, visit PETA’s Web site Circuses.com.