Stop Cruelty Under the Shriners Big Top, Cross Post, Please

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Stop circus cruelty by peacefully demostrating with us November 10, 11, 15, 16 in Fort Worth. Please help us to educate the public and make circus abuse of animals unprofitable and a thing of the past. Contact me for details. Thank you. Margaret Cruelty Under the Shriners Big Top Shrine Circuses have deplorable records of cruelty to animals, serious violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, and animal attacks resulting in injury and even death. Elephants used by Shriners have rampaged, killing trainers and injuring children. Although many successful charitable organizations never use circus fundraisers, about 150 of Shrine's 191 temples host annual circuses. These circuses raise funds for the temples' administrative costs, not for the Shriners children's hospitals. The Shriners do not operate

their own traveling circus; instead Shrine temples produce circuses by either hiring an existing circus such as Tarzan Zerbini Circus, Jordan World Circus, Royal Hanneford Circus, Walker Bros. Circus, and George Carden Circus or putting together a collection of animal exhibitors, acrobats, and other acts that perform under the Shrine Circus name. Learn more by reading factsheets about these circuses. Animals in circuses are beaten to make them perform tricks on command. If they do not perform properly, they are beaten some more. In cases where they snap and either run amok or attack someone, they are beaten again. After one recent

incident, a whistleblower notified PETA that a gang of trainers armed with bullhooks, electric prods, and pipes were awaiting an elephant who stomped her trainer to death as she was unloaded from the transport trailer in an obscure location. Circuses and animal exhibitors performing for Shriners have been cited and fined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for failing to provide veterinary care, failure to provide minimum space, inadequate and unsafe enclosures, mishandling animals, endangering animals and the public, failure to provide shelter from inclement weather, failure to provide exercise, and failure to provide nutritious food and clean drinking water. In 2004, Shrine Circus elephant supplier Hawthorn Corporation

admitted to 19 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act and paid a $200,000 fine. Hawthorn had been charged with using physical abuse, causing harm and discomfort, failing to provide veterinary care, and unsafe public contact. In 2001, a parent chaperoning schoolchildren to the Medinah Shrine Circus in Chicago reported that children were traumatized when they saw a trainer beating an elephant. She wrote to the local newspaper, "When the elephants were brought behind the curtain, the trainer began verbally abusing and hitting the elephant. We watched in horror as he swung a stick with all his force and struck the elephant in the back of the leg. This must have hurt because the elephant let out a scream that could be heard throughout the UIC Pavilion." http://www.circuses.com/feat/shrine/ Do You ?