Shrine Circus Demo

I attended my first demonstration ever yesterday. It was a Shrine Circus Demo in Plymouth Meeting, PA with the Animal ACTivsts of Philly. There were only three of us there, but Marianne and Gigi were awesome and it was great to meet people who actually understand my passion about animal rights. During our demonstration the trainers actually allowed the two elephants to graze in the field behind us, we suspect to make passerbys believe our signs about animal abuse were false. However, while the elephants were grazing the two trainers paid no attention to them and allowed one of them to wander quite far away, which put everyone at extreme risk if they were to get spooked. (See photo above) I was also bothered by the fact that they did not even take the harnesses off of them while they were not performing.

Marianne and Gigi attended a prior showing of the circus to see what they were forcing the elephants to do. They informed me that the announcer persuaded the audience to believe that the elephants were performing because they said the magic word "please", when in actuality it was because the trainer picked up the bullhook. I was shocked when they informed me that one of the elephants they were forcing to perform was injured. While the elephants were grazing in the field behind us, it was very obvious that this elephant was extremely injured as she barely moved around and was not putting any weight on her back left leg. (See photo above)

To read more about the horrors behind Shrine Circuses, click here.