PETA Calls On USDA to Quarantine All Elephants With Carson & Barnes Circus

[Guest guest]

PETA Calls On USDA to Quarantine All Elephants With Carson & Barnes Circus For Immediate Release: June 12, 2007 Contact:Lisa Wathne 757-622-7382 Hugo, Okla. -- Today, PETA sent an urgent letter to Dr. Chester Gipson, deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) animal care division, urging him to immediately quarantine all elephants with the Carson & Barnes Circus. PETA is urging the action after learning from a reliable source that three Carson & Barnes elephants were allegedly quarantined last week. PETA suspects that this action was taken because the elephants may have been exposed to or infected with tuberculosis (TB). PETA

believes that if three elephants were exposed to TB, all the elephants traveling with the circus were potentially exposed and should be quarantined and tested. Carson & Barnes has a history of shoddy monitoring of TB, including falsifying TB tests submitted on its elephants and failing to test elephant handlers for TB. Carson & Barnes also owns an elephant named Joy who was obtained from the Hawthorn Corporation, whose elephants the USDA has described as "a very real risk of tubercular contagion to the national elephant herd and the general public." "TB is a highly contagious disease that can spread easily from elephant to elephant and from elephants to people," says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. "Sending a group of potentially infected elephants out to mingle with thousands of circusgoers makes the Andrew Speaker case look like a tempest in a teapot." For more information, please visit PETA’s Web site Circuses.com. PETA’s letter to Dr. Chester Gipson follows. June 12, 2007 Chester A. Gipson, Deputy AdministratorUSDA, APHIS, AC4700 River Rd., Unit 84Riverdale, MD 20737-1234 Letter to USDA deputy administrator from PeTA: Dear Dr. Gipson: It is our understanding that three elephants traveling with the Carson & Barnes Circus in Colorado were allegedly taken off the road and placed in quarantine by the USDA. We assume that this action was taken either because the elephants tested positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) or because it was determined that they had been exposed to an infected elephant. If this is indeed the case, we urge the USDA to quarantine all the elephants traveling with Carson & Barnes and to conduct an independent assessment of each

elephant’s TB status with all available methods, including the MAPIA test. As you know, the February 21, 2002, affidavit taken by the USDA from a PETA investigator working for Carson & Barnes (copy enclosed) documented the fact that the circus intentionally mislabeled trunk wash samples when elephants did not cooperate with the trunk wash procedure. In 2005, Carson & Barnes acquired a potentially infectious elephant named Joy from the Hawthorn Corporation. In a letter dated May 2004, the USDA stated that "the Hawthorn elephants present a very real risk of tubercular contagion to the national elephant herd and the general public." Furthermore, the USDA has cited Carson & Barnes for failure to have elephant attendants, handlers, and grooms tested for TB. Thank you for your time and attention. May we please be advised of the USDA’s actions in this matter? I can be reached at 757-622-7382. Sincerely,Lisa

WathneCaptive Exotic Animal Specialist Enclosure: Circus employee affidavit cc: Robert Gibbens, Director, Western Region, USDA, APHIS, AC If you have men who will exclude any of god's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men. --St. Francis of Assisi

Shape in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today!