ANIMALS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT
FIELD
"ABUSE FOR FUN"
Animals suffer horribly
for the sake of human entertainment. They are beaten or starved until they learn
to perform silly tricks; they are confined to small cages and deprived of all
that is natural to them; they are forced to run for their lives or fight other
animals to the death. Fortunately, people around the world are starting to realize
that cruelty is not entertaining, and they are demanding that animal acts be
banned. You can help: Perhaps the single best way to end the abuse of performing
animals is to boycott circuses, dolphinaria, horse races and other similar
events. When the profits disappear, so will the cruelty.
Through the efforts of animal rights and animal
welfare organizations, some of the physical abuse of and cruelty to live animals
in movies and on television has been ameliorated. Trip wires for horses, for
example, have largely been eliminated. However, instead of live animals being
abused and cruelly treated, a related phenomenon has surfaced which is at least
as bad, if not worse: "fake" animals are being abused and cruelly
treated in the name of "entertainment" and to sell products. An alien
"dog" confesses after being roughed up (Men In Black). Another
"dog" is thrown out a window (There's Something About Mary).
Post-copulation, a man falls atop a "cat" (EdTV). Another
"cat" is swung on its tail (Idle Hands). An over-the-hill football
player punches out a "horse" (Blazing Saddles). A TV ad for an on-line
shopping site shows real looking (but plastic) gerbils being shot out of a
cannon. For years cartoons-the Saturday morning TV pacifier for countless
children-have visited various forms of mayhem on hapless animals of every
description. Why does this happen in movies and
television? Why do the producers of "entertainment" and the purveyors
of products use animals at all, let alone in this manner? Why do they believe
that even simulated animal abuse and cruelty sells tickets and tacos?
Some of the problem is
ignorance. People just don't know what kinds of abuse goes on in animals entertainment. Look at horse
racing. People think it's fine, their expensive animals, no one is going to
abuse them.....not so
Here
are the facts:
- Wild animals,
such as elephants, tigers, bears, lions, and zebras, live in chains or
small, dark cages for ninety-five percent of their lives. Circus animals are
forced to travel in box cars or trucks for months at a time with no regard
for temperature, exercise or normal interaction with their own kind.
- Ringling
Bros., one of the most well-known and profitable circuses, has been cited by
the U.S. Department of Agriculture numerous times in the last decade for
repeated violations of animal care regulations.
- Animals such
as elephants are “trained” using the most extreme and brutal methods,
such as electric shocks, starvation and beatings. Henry Ringling himself
said in his memoirs, “These animals work from fear.”
- After years of
abuse, elephants will sometimes go berserk, rampaging and killing their
handlers or spectators. Over a hundred people have been killed or injured by
rampaging elephants since 1990.
- Old and sick
animals are often sold by zoos, amusement parks and circuses to “game
ranches” where trophy hunters pay to have their preferred species hauled
to them in a cage - “a canned hunt.” Some zoo animals are so terrified
they must be dragged out of the cage to be shot; others are so gentle and
tame that they walk right up to the shooter.
- For children's
rides, ponies are often not watered or fed all day to prevent them from
urinating or defecating in the circle as they walk endlessly around and
around. Animals in petting zoos spend their lives being roughly handled by
an unending series of sometimes ignorant and unsupervised youngsters.
- Hundreds of
animals are injured or killed every year in rodeos throughout the United
States.
- For the calf
roping event, calves are shocked with electric prods to force them to run
out of chutes at high speeds. The force of stopping breaks necks, killing or
injuring many calves each year.
- “Bucking
broncos” and bulls only buck to rid themselves of the painfully tight
straps cinched across their stomachs, near the genitals.
- Veterinarians
are not required to be present at most rodeos to help injured or dying
animals.
- Imprisoned in
“amusement” parks, whales and dolphins have injured and killed
themselves, sometimes deliberately ramming their bodies into the sides of
their concrete tanks.
- Racehorses are
victims of a multibillion-dollar industry rife with drug abuse, injuries,
race fixing, and for many horses, their career ends in a slaughterhouse. A
New York Daily News reporter remarked, “The thoroughbred race horse is a
genetic mistake. It runs too fast, its frame is too large, and its legs are
far too small. As long as mankind demands that it run at high speeds under
stressful conditions, horses will die at racetracks.”
- Thousands of
greyhounds are killed each year as the declining dog-racing industry
struggles to stay alive. Some puppies are killed in the name of
"selective breeding" before they ever touch a racetrack.
- Bullfighting
is the torture, mutilation, and slaughter of animals for entertainment.
- Animals used
in television and film are often brutally beaten to force them to perform.
The orangutan used in Clint Eastwood's film, Any Which Way But Loose, was
beaten to death by a club used by his “trainer.” The infamous Las Vegas
“entertainer” Bobby Berosini was videotaped beating the primates he used
in his nightclub act.
STOP THE ABUSE!
Don't attend
circuses, rodeos, racing. Do not support anything that uses an animal for
entertainment
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