Events

Protest Ringling Bros. Circus at Consol Energy Center!

Watch the 2009 undercover investigation of Ringling Bros. animal abuse on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECspj0daAlE
 
It's that time of year again...Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus is coming back to Pittsburgh and will once again be disgracing our city with it's abusive show of animal cruelty and exploitation. This is the first time Ringling will be performing at the new Consol Energy Center, which sadly has decided to adopt Ringling to it's program lineup after it left the now-closed Mellon Arena where it had consistently performed, because what better way to christen a brand new arena than to trash it by allowing two or three ton animals to tramp all over the new ice.
 
Ringling Bros. is performing in Pittsburgh from Wednesday, November 3rd through Sunday, November 7th.
 
We are holding a protest at the Saturday night show, which will likely be one of the highest attended, on Saturday, November 6th, from 5:30 PM-7:00 PM. We will be at the Centre Avenue side of the Consol Energy Center near the Verizon Entrance Gate.
 
Consol Energy Center Address: 1001 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Info on Parking, Maps, and Directions:
http://www.consolenergycenter.com/default.asp?consol=30&urlkeyword=Directions

Entrance Gates Info:
http://www.consolenergycenter.com/default.asp?consol=92

We will provide signs and leaflets but feel free to make and/or bring your own. If possible, please send up a quick email to let us know you are coming so that we can plan materials accordingly.

 
Ringling's Record of Shame
 
Animals used in circuses live miserable lives of exploitation, deprivation, confinement, and violent training. In order to get wild animals to perform unnatural, uncomfortable, and often dangerous tricks, they are beaten into submission using whips, electric prods, and bullhooks. They are trucked around from city to city in boxcars with no heat or air conditioning. When elephants are not performing, they are kept chained up by one front leg and one back leg; big cats and other animals are kept in cages so small they can barely turn around comfortably. Most importantly, the circus takes animals far from their natural homes, traumatically separates them from their families, and deprives them of their basic needs and desires to exercise, roam, socialize, forage, and play. Stereotypic behaviors such as swaying back and forth, head-bobbing, pacing, bar-biting, and self-mutilation are common signs of mental distress, and are not behaviors seen in nature.
 
Ringling Bros. has a long death list of animals who have died of neglect, abuse, or highly suspicious causes while under their “care”, including: Ricardo, an 8 month old baby elephant taken from his mother way too soon (since elephants live with their families their whole lives there really is no “too soon”), fell off a pedestal fracturing both hind legs, and died; Benjamin, a baby elephant removed from his mother before she could teach him how to swim, ran into a pool in fear from a trainer with a bullhook, and drowned; Kenny, a baby elephant who was forced to perform while sick and died from his illness later that night (incidentally, Ringling paid $20,000 to settle USDA charges out of court for failing to provide veterinary care to Kenny); Clyde, a lion who died of heat exhaustion in a boxcar while traveling through the Mojave Desert; and Arnie, a tiger who was shot five times by his trainer while he was locked in a cage. For more incidents, violations, and deaths see this link.
 
One of the most irritating pieces of propaganda Ringling loves to gloat about is that they run an Elephant Conservation Center in Florida where, they claim, they are helping to “save endangered elephants”. This is a joke. None of the elephants born at the center are ever released into the wild. In fact, the center amounts to nothing more than a highly-glorified breeding center to raise more “stocks” of elephants to perform in their circus, since they are no longer able to take animals from their natural homes in the wild.
 
For more information on Ringling Bros and other animal circuses visit:
www.RinglingBeatsAnimals.com
www.MoreBeautifulWild.com