Animal Activists rejoiced, as a U.S. District Court finally heard evidence of elephant abuse at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, owned by Feld Entertainment, Inc. The case is the culmination of more than eight years of research, undercover work, legal and political challenges, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections, and the work of innumerable animal activists who have made the connection between animal entertainment and animal abuse.
In this case, as with most other large-scale industrial and commercial animal abuse that comes to the public’s attention, documenting what goes on behind the curtain is critical. Animal Activists and undercover investigators often work for months before they can even think of bringing a camera into a circus, a research lab, an animal dealer or a slaughterhouse.
As a documentary filmmaker and Animal Activist I spent almost a decade observing humankind’s cruelty towards all types of living creatures on this planet and I have been exposed to more of the inside workings of circuses than I could ever forget or ignore. The list of abuses circus animals endure goes on and on, and is too shocking to describe in detail here, but I have seen hours of footage of circus elephants being beaten, starved, screamed at and attacked to get them to do “tricks” for our amusement and for the profit of companies like Feld.
