About 30 protesters gathered to voice concerns about use of animals in circus performances.
TL;DR
- Shrine Circus is returning to Ottawa, with seven performances scheduled this weekend
- The circus has previously stopped using elephants, but protesters from the Ottawa Animal Defense League wants a total ban on animal use
- Ringmaster Richard Curtis, defends the circus, saying that “misconceptions “their animals are captured from the wild are false.
As the Shrine Circus was setting up at the RA Centre Friday afternoon for the first of its seven weekend performances, protesters shouted their objections to the treatment of animals involved in the act.
Due in part to pressure from spectators, elephants in circuses across the world are being phased out. World-famous circus acts Barnum Bailey and the Ringling Bros. announced in March that they would stop using elephants starting in 2018.
Michele Thorn, who organized the protest with the Ottawa Animal Defense League, said elephants represent only a part of the problem.
“They’re also not getting rid of all their animals — they’re still going to use camels and other animals in those circuses,” said Thorn. “However, what it tells me is that we are … having an impact.”
In 2013, the fifth year Thorn had organized circus protests, she shot video that led to charges against the then-chair of the Capital Shrine Club after he put a protester into a headlock. The charges were dropped after the official wrote a letter of apology.
Lexy Scott, an attendee who planned to protest all seven shows, agreed that the removal of all animals is the goal.
“Even the horse and ponies, which some other people may not object to in a circus … we want all animals out of the act,” she said. “They whip the ponies, they train them just as harshly to learn tricks.”
Additionally, she said the animals used in the show are wild and are not meant to be used as circus attractions.
“What values are parents teaching their children by bringing them to a circus to basically laugh, be entertained and sometimes even mock beautiful wild animals for being tortured and ‘trained’ to perform tricks that they would not normally do in the wild?”
Lexy Scott – Concerned attendee
But Richard Curtis, ringmaster and performance director of circus facilitator TZ Productions, said the elephants were not captured in the wilderness.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions that they’ve been taken from the wild,” he said. “They were born and bred in captivity, captive breeding programs, conservation programs.”
He said the circus makes a point of acting as an “ambassador” for the two Asian elephants it uses, informing the crowds that the species has been in decline, with two-thirds of the population “vanishing in the last five years.”
“We like to think we’re doing our own little part to support them,” Curtis said.
Although admitting that the two elephants, the miniature Stallion, the Gypsy Vanner and six Arabian horses they have are “staples of the circus,” he said the majority of the show involved human performers, including a flying trapeze act and motorcyclists riding in a “giant ball of steel.”
This, said Thorn, is exactly what the circus should showcase.
“They could certainly have a nice show without animals,” she said. “Animals don’t deserve to have that kind of life.”
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Animal rights group activists protest Shrine Circus’ return to Ottawa.
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Protests started when the Shrine Circus was setting up at the RA Centre on Friday afternoon. This was the first of its seven scheduled weekend performances. 🎪🐘
“We want all animals out of the act,” protesters shouted their objections to the treatment of animals involved in the circus act.
