Ringling Brothers abuses baby elephants

Ropes stretch taut, pulling a leg out from under a young elephant. She slams to the ground, a sharp hook jabbed into the sensitive back area of her head. Seven Ringling Brothers employees stretch the ropes further, splaying the baby animal's legs.When the elephant screams, trying desperately to sit up, a trainer uses an electric prod to keep her down.

And that is how Ringling Brothers teaches an elephant to lie down.

This method is only after the elephant has been chained, socially isolated, in the dark for nearly a month. Ringling Brothers has no interest in facilitating the learning process - they just want to break an animal as fast a possible so that they can make money from the stupid tricks. That's what they are too - stupid, dumb, inane, silly. They serve no purpose other than to entertain humans. Torturing animals, confining them in cages, beating, shocking....all for fun? That's wrong, immoral. Black and white, no fuzzy gray to see here.

You can see the photos here.They were taken by a former baby elephant trainer who's late wife pleaded with him to do what's right for the elephants. So a mere two months before his own death, Sam Haddock gave the photos to PETA who has published them for the world to see.



The Washington Post just published an in-depth article on this story here.



"It's not in Ringling's interest to mistreat the elephants. "These things are worth a tremendous amount of money. They're irreplaceable.'" This is Gary Jacobson, an elephant trainer. He also says elephants are a lot like people who are also apparently things. Seriously? Elephants are things? I suppose that makes beating them, shocking them, stealing them from their mothers, and making them perform stupid tricks all a lot easier. I mean, he's just doing it to a thing, right?