The Animal Slave Trade: These Practices Should Be Banned!

Circuses, roadside attractions, marine mammal parks and aquariums. Performing animal acts are a 3D experience—Disgusting, Deplorable, and Depressing. The gamut runs from one bizarre scenario to another. Here are a few:

• Elephants and other wild animals trekked from city to city in tiny circus cages.

• Dancing muzzled bears chained by an ice cream stand

• Horses diving into a swimming pool at a beachside pier

• Dolphins forced to jump through high hoops in aquariums

Kept in barren cages with concrete floors as beds and iron bars as windows, performing animals often suffer from malnutrition, loneliness, the denial of all normal pleasures and behaviors, loss of freedom and independence, lack of veterinary care and filthy quarters. Surplus animals are always readily available from zoos. Even death row inmates receive better care and these animals have committed no crime.

Training animals for entertainment is often abusive. They are forced to perform stressful, confusing, unnatural, uncomfortable and painful acts. Training methods can include the use of electric prods, bullhooks and whips, food deprivation, drugging, and surgically removing or impairing teeth or claws. Temperature extremes, dehydration and exposure as well as the constant stress of being viewed by humans constitute their daily life. Without exercise, wild animals become listless and their immune systems are weakened, making them more susceptible to illness. Mental illness is endemic among captive animals with abnormal behaviors like pacing and self-mutilation being typical symptoms. Torn from their families and deprived of all dignity, captivity is hell for animals meant to roam free in family groups. Marine mammals and fish in aquariums and parks are also victims of the animal “slave trade.” In the wild orcas and dolphins may swim up to 100 miles a day, but these same animals in captivity are confined to tanks as small as 24 feet by 24 feet., and 6 feet deep (Dolphin project Europe Newsletter, Winter, 94-95.) Marine mammals live in family groups (pods) consisting of the mother and her adult sons and daughters. Each member of the family communicates in a dialect specific to that family. To capture dolphins and other marine mammals, it is necessary to chase them into shallow waters and surround them with nets. Unwanted animals are thrown back. Some die of shock while others succumb to pneumonia caused by water entering their lungs through their blowholes. Pregnant females may spontaneously abort their babies. Orcas and dolphins who survive this ordeal become frantic upon seeing their companions entrapped and may try to save them. When Namu, a wild orca captured off the coast of Canada, was towed to the Seattle Public Aquarium in a steel cage, a group of wild orcas from his family followed him for miles. For more information, go to The Dolphin Project at www.dolphinproject.org

Rodeos, Bullfighting, Dog and Cock Fighting. Since the days of the Gladiators, the public has enjoyed the experience of watching humans and animals attack and maul each other to death. Rodeo and bullfighting aficionados claim that these violent animal vs. human  fights are that in which either participant, human or animal may die or be injured. In reality, before the match even starts, the animal doesn't have a fighting chance to win. Rodeos like bullfighting in Spain, have a long tradition of acceptance in the United States despite the extreme animal cruelty involved. Dog and cock fighting, while illegal in most states, still enjoys an underground following in many cities.

Rodeos are visibly cruel but amount torture behind the scenes. "Tough" cowboys use a device that delivers a 5000 volt shock, walk up to a steer, bull, or calf that is restrained in a chute, and shove the device into the animal's hide. The captive animal may be shocked repeatedly with no means of escape. Investigators have taken videos of animals jumping and jerking in response to the pain. This is the same technique used by terrorists to force a confession out of a prisoner. And the abuse continues as the animal is released from the gate. Calf roping is one of the most horrific events. Calves are baby animals and already terrified from the repeated shocks as they bolt out of the gate. While the calf is trying to escape the shocks, running at up to 25 miles per hour, a cowboy throws a lasso around the calf's neck, tightens it, and slams him/her to the ground. Sometimes the lasso misses the neck and the rope wraps around the calf's legs or stomach, causing him to slam into the ground head-first. Every year rodeos cause animals to suffer neck and back injuries, or death. The “tough” cowboys never show any compassion for the injured or dying animal. Perhaps this is because that might reveal the cruelty underlying this “sport" of cowards.

Bullfighting. Before the fight begins, bulls languish in pens that lack sunlight, food, and water. They are commonly fed laxatives or drugs to debilitate them. They are also stabbed in the backs before release into the arena. A traditional bullfight consists of three stages. During the first stage, picadors, men atop heavily padded, blindfolded horses, approach the bull and drive pics into his neck muscles to begin the flow of blood to weaken the bull.(2) The banderillos come next, working on foot to place "their banderillas (brightly adorned, barbed sticks) in the bull's shoulders in order to lower its head for the eventual kill."(3) The blades of these spears continue to move and dig into the bull's back throughout the fight, causing bleeding and tissue damage. The bull may also suffer internal bleeding.

After the bull has been sufficiently weakened and his movements slowed, the matador enters to "fight" the animals. After dancing with the bull and taunting him for several minutes, in an effort to excite the crowd, the matador attempts a kill. The goal for a clean kill is to plunge the sword between the bull's withers into the aorta.(3) However, it is not uncommon for the matador to miss, causing further torment until finally an executioner is called in to finish him off.

Racing Horses and Greyhounds. Whether it be horses, greyhounds or another animals, racing is a losing bet for animals. Selectively bred for speed, horses and dogs are put through a “weeding out” process where the losing animals are killed or worse yet sold into a life full of suffering like the carriage trade. Like other performing animals, racing animals run in all kinds of weather and on all kind of tracks. These gentle animals never know a life of love and care. Selective inbreeding makes these animals highly vulnerable to disease and genetic defects.

Racehorses are made into drug addicts by their trainers and owners. The drugs are not only used as performance enhancers but they also mask the pain without treating the underlying problem. Lasix and Bute are two drugs that allow horses to run with injuries like hairline fractures then be killed after they finally break down from veterinary neglect. Other practices like “milkshaking” in which a mix of sugar and soda bicarbonate is administered to the horse right before the race. This mix delays the buildup of lactic acid in horses' muscles allowing him to run faster and further before tiring. Milkshaking is often fatal because among other things, horses can aspirate the fluid and die.

Approximately 30,000 greyhounds are bred annually to race in four dozen racetracks in fifteen states nationwide. When they are not racing, the dogs live in stacked wood or metal crates for 18-22 hours per day. Shredded newspaper or thin carpet remnants are generally used for bedding. Some are trained to run after live animals like rabbits and kittens who they eventually shred and kill. Greyhounhds, like horses, are often given performance enhancing drugs that mask the pain of injuries long enough for them to run. Even the most successful greyhound races for only a few years while thousands of others never make it to success. Estimates suggest that approximately 20,000 greyhounds are killed each year either because they didn't “make the grade” or their racing career had reached an end. You can help by adopting one of these animals from the National Greyhound Adoption Program.

Carraige Horses. Race horses too old or feeble to race are often consigned to a life of hardship and suffering on city streets as carriage horses. Most horses who enter the carriage trade industry start out with previous injuries and debilitation.  In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, animal welfare workers at the Morris Animal Refuge (MAR) would often find their summer work schedule interrupted with news of a carriage horse who collapsed due to excessive heat exposure. Cool water and damp towels in hand, MAR veterinary technicians and kennel staff  would rush to the scene by Independence Hall to try to help revive the animals sprawled half conscious on blisteringly hot asphalt streets. Even for healthy horses, a carriage ride is not an easy trip. Regulations exist but are rarely enforced. Many horses work 12 hours a day, often in extreme weather conditions only to retire to an unheated, barren, concrete stall with no room to lay down and no hay or bedding. Many times the stalls are filthy with stacked floors like parking garages. The smoke and exhaust fumes from urban traffic take their toll on the horses and often veterinary care is nonexistent for these gentle beings. Many drivers don't know how to fasten harnesses correctly and leave straps so lose they rub and chafe the skin (see photo). And few horses receive proper fittings for new horse shoes.

A growing number of cities have banned carriage horses including Palm Beach, FL; Santa Fe, NM; Las Vegas, NV; and many cities in Europe and Asia including London, Paris and Tokyo.

Zoos. The Philadelphia Inquirer (You can order it from the archives at www.philly.com) published a precedent setting editorial on May 14, 2005 entitled 'Move The Herd” and subtitled “A Crowded Elephant House.” The editorial proposed that   “The Philadelphia Zoo, with limited space and finances, should start sending its elephants to better homes.” The editorial goes on to note that the Philadelphia Zoo “is caught up in a national debate over the future of elephants in captivity. In 2004, four zoo elephants died in San Francusco and Chicago of health problems that animal welfare advocates say were exacerbated by captivity. In 2004, the Detroit zoo voluntarily ended its elephant exhibit because of space and climate constraints.

No matter how large a zoo, it does not meet the needs of wild animals.

For example, the entire size of the Philadelphia Zoo is 42 acres - not nearly large enough for elephants, the worlds' largest mammal who roam 30 miles a day in the wild. In an article in the New York Times by Mark Derr (Cramped Quaters, October 2, 2003) cites research from Oxford University scholars published in the prestigious science journal, Nature. Based on their research, the scientists claim that polar bears, lions, tigers, cheetahs and other wide-ranging carnivores fare so poorly in zoos that they should no longer be kept as “exhibits.” The typical zoo enclosure for a polar bear is one-millionth the size of its home range in the wild, which can reach 31,000 square miles. Some captive polar bears spend 25 percent of their day in what scientists call stereotypic pacing, and infant mortality for captive animals is around 65 percent.

Animals suffer from:

• Restriction to enclosures that are dramatically smaller than the natural home range

• Lack of diet variability

• Lack of barriers to allow animals to hide from view

• Lack of consistent relationships with caregivers

What happens to all of those cute baby zoo animals that attract lots of visitors and sell lots of tickets? They grow up, become less cute and often get sold to horrific roadside attractions where they languish and end their sort unhappy lives. This lower echelon of captive animal confinements are even more horrific than the A.Z.A. (American Zoological Association) accredited zoos. Physical abuse, starvation and dehydration, filthy confinements, and complete lack of veterinary care are only some of the deplorable conditions reported in the numerous petting zoos and roadside attractions found around the country. Their destiny may be even worse if they are sold to a canned hunt farm.