|
Testimony of TOM
RIDER, click here
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS BY Brenda Shoss
(Click Here)
LETTER FROM A CIRCUS EMPLOYEE, click here
http://www.apnm.org/campaigns/circus/stories.html
****************************************************************************************************************
**The
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS**
of
Courtenay Tosti, ex-circus employee:
"....I
have stayed away from anything to do with that circus because they knew
I was an elephant 'sympathizer' and threatened me with future harm if I
tried to go public with my story. They are ruthless, almost mobster-like
folks and I was afraid."
This is Alta, very depressed, a
friend of Courtenay's
"I worked for the
Carson and Barnes circus for a year in the nineties, and have some
real horror stories...way beyond what they show on television! I
chose my username because my favorite elephant was a tall, moody
girl named Alta. I'm sure she is still with that circus, I wish I
could help her. We had a lovely elephant named Mona, who had a
malformed or more probably injured back that made her look unusually
tall and humpbacked. She could barely get around and moved very
slowly so she didn't perform, instead she stood in the chains all
day...and never got in trouble thank god. I had left the circus and
was living in Indiana when Carson and Barnes visited Evansville,
where I was living. Mona had fallen out of the truck and injured
herself and so the circus dropped her off at the zoo there..the same
one where Bunny was living. She died there, away from her family,
and when I volunteered to work at the zoo later they told me Mona
seemed to know that she was not going to walk again and just gave
up. It is a shame she could not have been rescued, I think she would
have lived another 20 years if she had been...she just wasn't able
to climb in and out of semi-trailers twice a day. That circus has
another elephant ( they have about 23 in total) named Dolly that is
similarly crippled, and has had an extremely tragic life...and they
were talking about using her as a ride elephant, dear god I hope
they didn't, she was blind and would swing at you with her trunk if
you came too near, She need to be in a refuge BADLY."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Sad to
say, using the bullhook in the rectum, vagina and on the breasts, is
common, it was one of the things they did to Margaret- They did it to
Opal one day and she cried( whimpered) when she peed for a couple of
days. They will get a hook in from the rear between the legs and yank
upwards as hard as possible, it bleeds like crazy when they do this."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is (left to right) Tracy,
Kelly, and Becky, the three elephants that appeared in the Frisco
undercover video. Tracy was the cutest elephant I've ever seen, and I
was even told by a trainer that she was a 'good elephant' which is high
praise indeed from one of those guys...
Becky was forced to perform on an infected foot. and limped slowly and
painfully, while they jabbed her and yelled at her to get her going.
undercover video:
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=carson_barnes_long
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Just imagine the things I didn't see...alot goes on after dark at the
circus-many of these men were sex offenders in the first place...there
were rumors of men having favorite horses...and worse"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I guess that over
the years I have become 'accustomed' to the images in my head, it
must be really shocking to hear about these things for the first
time. The thing that made it all worse, was knowing the elephants
personally. seeing their very complex personalities and unnervingly
human reactions to things being done to them..and to be able to do
nothing. On my first or second day with the show, we were still at
winter quarters, I was without anything to do and I was just
wandering around observing. The elephants were out in 'the yard', a
small area behind the barn that they would put the ellys in when
they needed to clear some manure out. They were put on a picket,
just as they were in the barn and everywhere else they went. I
noticed one elephant had a rock and was striking her chain with it.
She would lay the rock down, as if to reposition it, and then pick
it up and continue striking at the chain. This elephant had an
extra set of chain bracelets on her front legs, and I was told later
that this was Barbara, and that she wore those chains as she was a
'runner'. They told me that she once broke her chains and
then removed the hinges from the barn door, laid it aside, carefully
put aside all of the tools and things in the way, and then ate all
the grain stores, making herself sick. She was also the one that
broke loose one day several years ago, set two of her friends free,
and then together they escaped to Hugo lake and were at large for
several days before they actually had to call in a big game hunter
to track them down!
To anyone who may
think that an elephant is smart in the way that an exceptional dog
is smart, tales like these might sound fabricated...I didn't really
believe the things I saw either, I mean, to believe it was to face
the fact that an animal with a sentient mind and human emotions was
being treated so horrifically...it was very disturbing.
I have many more
stories like these and I feel that the more widely they are told the
better. I have been telling them for years, and have turned more
than a few people against the circus in that time. I really am so
glad that I have found this site and I definitely want anything I
say to be passed around, by whatever venue. My name is Courtenay
Tosti, please feel free to use my name or whatever I say on your
site! Now if we could just get it onto the billboard at Times
Square....."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many days were so muddy, the trucks couldn't drive into place
themselves, so they had the elephants do it. I often saw them straining
so hard you could hear popping noises in their legs, and they would
shake from the exertion, sometimes they would slip and go down in the
mud, and the handlers would club them to get them up, no mercy. After a
morning of this they would be so tired their heads would droop, then
Suzy would do two shows (after helping to erect the tent), give rides
for hours, tear down the show, which had a number of tasks shared
between the four "tent ellies", Suzy, Barbara, Minnie, and Bunny. Kay
was one, but they retired her from it a couple of months before she
died.), and then pull trucks back out of the mud, after they'd settled
deep into it for a few hours.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is Suzy, overworked, undernourished, old and dry, beaten
regularly...she is the picture of circus elephant misery
She
is the new herd matriarch, and now the oldest girl on the show, in her
50s. Suzy was intense and imposing, and often was in trouble, I saw her
beaten several times.
Suzy had humanlike eyes, a small chin that gave her a granny appearance,
and seemed very intelligent, and unhappy.
A more recent photo of poor old
Suzy, still giving rides....she and Alta were (are?) the main ride
elephants. See Suzy fiddling with the rope, she always did that, she
would untie knots if she got the chance (they would club her if they
caught her playing with props like that). She could also remove the cap
from the gas tanks of the semis, and she would drink all of the fuel,
spray it around, then get sick later. Once I watched as she bit down on
a can of silver spray paint she had snatched, you could hear it pop when
she bit it, and paint blew up all over her face and mouth. She dropped
the can and began rubbing her mouth with her trunk tip, and squeeking
pitifully, while her handlers stood around and laughed at her, but
didn't offer her water.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the veteran elephant handlers was coming out of his truck,
and stopped and had a disagreement with another employee, during
which they argued heatedly. Afterwards, when the other employee
walked away, the handler turned around and began hitting Opal, one
of the C&B elephants, on the face and head with a hook with all his
anger and strength..for no reason but that he was mad...I saw
another, violent elephant handler do the same thing one day, as he
too was coming out of his bunk...he was trying to nap, apparently,
and was annoyed by the jingling of the chains caused by the racking
of the elephants..he came storming out of his bunk with a baseball
bat, and began clubbing Suzy on the head with it, and calling her
filthy names..he hit her so hard she went to her knees, the echo
from him hitting her skull went right through the pit of my stomach.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Winter Quarters at Carson and Barnes Circus:
T his
is the outside yard at winterquarters, that's the ellie barn, yes,
they're chained...that biggest African ellie is Paula
"The Carson and
Barnes Circus has it's winter quarters in the small town of Hugo,
Oklahoma, a town where my grandfather was Mayor, and where I spent
most of my teenage years. Hugo called itself 'circus town USA' and I
went to school with several performers children, some of them
performers themselves, as well as with the daughters of the owners
Gary and Barbara Byrd. One of my friends in high school was an
elephant rider who was the daughter of David Rawls, the owner of the
Kelly-Miller circus, a smaller offshoot of C&B. So to was almost
natural that at some point I would join, it was the only job left in
town, anyway. When I first joined, the show was still at winter
quarters, doing repairs and creating the new props for the next
season. I didn't have much to do and mainly just ran around
observing those first few days. I remember seeing the bullhooks
hanging in the barn and asking what they were used for and the
handlers just laughing. I was so excited that day when I heard they
were going to be putting Kelly-Millers three elephants through their
paces that day in the big barn...I climbed up in the loft to get a
great Arial view. The handler walked the elephants in and I saw he
had a pocketful of carrots...then he immediately screamed " alright
you f*****g b*******s MOVE UP!!!! It got worse from there, he hit
them constantly even though they were doing their best, and called
them filthy names. I was shocked when Viola, a young African who did
a cute little wave with her trunk, began crying at one point, for
which she was struck over the face repeatedly. This went on for the
whole 45 minutes or so that he was working them...oh, and he never
gave them a single carrot. I was to soon find out that this was the
daily reality for the elephants, much of it alot worse."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A letter written to a circus patron who denied seeing abuse
while visiting, this was Tosti's response:
"Alright, well I DID
work there, and not only is it as bad as they say it is, it is in
fact, worse. Lengthy conversations between me and Carson and Barnes
elephant handlers made it clear that daily abuse, insufficient diet,
exposure to weather extremes and shortened life spans were par for
the course at any circus, not just Carson and Barnes. The brutal
training methods are standard procedure. Not just to take their word
for it, I also witnessed these things, ad-nauseum, on a daily basis.
Despite whatever you think you saw, the elephants are NOT bathed on
a daily basis, if ever. In fact, if an elephant were to attempt to
even spray itself with water it was beaten, as a muddy elephant
would mess up the costumes of the riders. Who said they were kept in
cramped cages? They are, for the most part, kept chained front and
back legs to a picket line, unable to move. Are you going to refute
the pictures and video of this? Do you really think these pictures
are fabricated?
I don't have to be
licensed to inspect elephants to see them limping on infected feet,
bleeding from bull-hook inflicted wounds and wounds that have
developed in the cracks of their dry skin. I don't need to be an
expert to know that elephants need something other than hay and
sweet grain in their daily diets.
Who are you? Did
you work for Ringling or Clyde Beatty? If you were just visiting
they were putting their best face forward. Carson and
Barnes employees were instructed to keep their use of the bullhook
to a minimum when the animal rights people were there. They would
put on a phony show of feeding the elephants bread and lettuce, they
would even pat the elephants as if they cared, but it was all
bogus. Circus people are talented con artists and could make the
layman believe whatever they wanted them to. You fell for it, good
for you.
By the way, I am
not an activist. I eat meat, I wear leather. I do not go out and
picket pet shops. I do however, carry with me the terrible images of
elephants being beaten until they fell down and urinated on
themselves. I worked alongside the animals at C&B and I cannot
forget the deaths of Nelson, the Siberian Tiger, Kay, the elephant,
Rick, the horse, and the four-horned sheep who was put away in a hot
trailer and allowed to die without treatment while having
difficult labor. What about Mona, the elephant crippled in her
youth, barely able to walk yet kept touring with the show for years
until she fell out of the truck twice and was mortally injured, then
abandoned at a zoo to die? All of these animals deaths were
untimely, suspicious and occurred within a few months of each other.
Kati, the pygmy hippo, who was not given water to lay in and whose
skin was cracked and bloody-do I need to be an expert to know that
hippos need water? Our hippo from the previous year died
prematurely, as well.
Families getting to
sit for a couple of hours and watch animals do silly tricks is not
worth this kind of carnage, I hope you can sleep well knowing that
you have stood up for the abuse of animals for your entertainment.
People in the
circus industry can be ruthless and mob-like in dealing with their
enemies. Do you think I would risk my well-being coming forward
about this if I didn't know it were really going on? Like they said,
watch the C&B training video, then come back on here and refute what
you saw, I dare you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I don't suppose
there is much they could do, except maybe try to discredit me. I was
a troubled teen when I first joined...Other than that, if something
happened to me or my family, everyone would know who did it!! As I
said before, one rainy day in a dramatic little scene I was bawling
my eyes out and promised Alta I would try to help her and the others
if I could, whenever or however that would be. It is my duty to do
anything I can, however small. I don't know what one persons
testimony could do, though. A sad fact is that people would come to
the circus to see this 'abuse' they had heard about, thus reversing
the desired effect of making public what was going on. I am Just
hoping that intelligent people hear the news and refuse to visit the
circus anymore, as many of my friends have. Please let me know what
I have to do, I am ready."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is ( left to right) Margaret,
Paula, Mona and Dolly.
Margaret is the elephant I watched receive a terrible beating involving
8 men with baseball bats and bullhooks. They attacked her for nearly an
hour, until she fell on her face, she wailed like a baby, and urinated
and defecated in fear. They stuffed mud into her wounds and she
performed in the show that night as if nothing had happened.
Paula was the subject more than one USDA citations, concerning her
ongoing, untreated skin condition. Paula was a 'runner', and not
allowed to perform, instead she stood in the chains, all day...
Mona is the elephant left to die at the Mesker Park Zoo after falling
out of the trailer twice and being mortally injured. Mona was crippled
in her youth during a brutal training session, and could only walk with
a humpback, taking tiny steps. She was unable to perform and stood in
the chains, all day.
Dolly was a recent addition to the lineup in 1994, acquired from another
show that was going out of business. Dolly was old, and very arthritic,
unable to move above a snails pace. Dolly face was slumped from an
injury from a bullhook, she was senile and apt to try to smash you if
you came too near. Her handler, Danny B., was thinking of making her a
ride elephant.
"Mona was an Asian ele with C&B,
who from what I was told by a handler was crippled during her early
training, which as you know is so harsh, some baby eles don't even
survive it.(the elephant death list records her as having metabolic
bone disease, but....I don't believe it.) Mona stood in a strange
humpbacked manner, with her back standing about 4 feet higher than
the other eles. There was a worn spot in the roof of the trailer
where she rode, from her back brushing it for years. Mona was unable
to perform or even walk very well, taking very slow, painstaking
steps. Even so, she was expected to climb in and out of the trailer,
with no patience shown her, and then she stood in the chains all
day...that was her whole life. She was so helpless, they would
occasionally let her off the picket, and she would stay right around
the showgrounds..you'd be running along to work or whatever and
you'd run smack into her. She was totally harmless, one of many of
their eles that was completely tame and sweet, and not considered a
risk to the public.
Mona had developed rotten feet
just like Calle, and so many others, from spending so many long
years standing immobile in her own waste, they soaked her feet but
it wasn't helping any.
Mona fell out of the trailer
once, and they got her up but she did it again a few days later and
was severely injured, I'm not sure what the exact injuries where,
though. I had JUST quit the show, and gone back to Evansville to
live, when they arrived there with Mona and left her at Mesker Park
Zoo, where Bunny was still living.
I later volunteered at the zoo,
and the ele handlers were interested in talking to me. They told me
the C&B handlers just sort of stood around like idiots when they
were trying to get Mona out of the sling to see if she was going to
be able to stand. The said at some point she just sort of stood back
on her hind legs and backed out of it, and this was unusual, she was
a smart ele.
The circus went on without Mona,
and she was dead soon after, I still assume she was euthanized,
although one of Bunny's caretakers said she was extremely depressed
and just died. I don't know, though."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is Carson and Barnes Bunny,
once handled by a young Johnny Walker. Bunny had a large boil on her
knee from a hook wound. She is a very sweet elephant. She sure is
looking rough, poor thing...
" I have been
holding a novels worth of stories in for years now, and I
promised the elephants that I would try to help them someday, so
I would like to get my info out. I know that sounds corny but
after getting to know what sentient beings the elephants were,
and then watching them get beaten on a daily basis, I began to
get REAL emotional. It is why I eventually quit."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is Minnie, she was one of
the 'old girls' (Kay,Barb,Suzy,and Minnie) She was also one of the 5
elephants that were used to do the heavy labor of erecting the tent,
putting up the seats, dragging semi haulers into place, out of, and
into itanda myriad other jobs, also doing the 2 daily shows. It
seemed obvious to me that Minnie found many of the tricks painful,
shaking her head and crying out during the long mount, and the
crawl.
She was pretty, with unusual, up-turned eyes, and a very sweet,
almost, childish, personality.
"During the year
traveling circuses often intersect each other and more than one
circus stopped and 'visited' with Carson and Barnes. Culpepper-
Meriwether was one of them, and I just remember checking them out to
see if maybe their elephants had it any better than ours...they
didn't. They were chained front and back just like ours were.
They were struck continually and cursed at, just like ours were.
They were thin and dehydrated, just like ours. The article mentioned
that the handlers were saying that the elephants clearly could have
overturned the trailer and broken their chains but that they didn't
because they were so happy...truth is the reason they don't is that
they are very intelligent and know that to escape would only mean
being gunned down. many of the older elephants had seen this happen
themselves, and I feel they may have passed it on to the younger
elephants. I'm certain that many of the elephants who finally lose
it and rampage, such as with Tyke, have made a conscious decision
to commit suicide. Also notice that even in a crowded tent it is
usually only the elephants handlers that get killed. These elephants
don't want to hurt anybody..but when they do they choose their
victim for good reasons."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"All of the ellys
would suffer in cold weather, we would tour every state, including
Idaho, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. The poor, naked elephants didn't
sway back and forth in these climates, they stood, heads down,
huddled together. The Rhino, Goliath, was left out in the cold
weather and he would lay unmoving at the back of his pen-this would
be in sub-zero weather, we would be frozen in several layers of
clothing, imagine how these naked animals must have felt. Sometimes,
if it was especially cold they would load the elephants back into
the trailers after the show, but I doubt it was much warmer that way
and besides, 5 elephants packed into a trailer for endless
hours....need I say more?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is Gogo (Goliath), a
sweet, puppy dog of a rhino, who I would stop and scratch around the
eye (the only soft part on a rhino) every day. He lived in this
tiny, filthy box, and was left out even in icy weather, when he
would huddle against the back of the cage. Every few years, the
rhino would die, or become too large..I don't know what they did
with them, the rumor was they shot them and buried them out behind
winterquarters..after keeping their head or skin, or horn, to
decorate their homes and offices. Note where employees have been
cutting off chunks of horn, as souvenirs.
"4
or 5 years ago a series of cable programs was coming on (either
discovery or TLC) titled, "the secret life of;" and it would be about
different professions, the one I am talking about was "the secret life
of- the circus and sideshow." The featured circus was Carson and Barnes.
I remember Frisco clearly now, because he was the Animal Supervisor in
the show, which was filmed in about 1999. He was standing there with
MARGARET, and talking about how she was a 'crazy girl' and so on. She
was the elephant I saw receive the gang beating! I was like "who the
**** is that guy, and I was so mad, you could tell he was an even bigger
creep than Carr."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is Rosie, one of my faves
because she was so unusual looking, her head being twice the size of the
other bulls heads. Rosie did her best, but was very sad in her demeanor.
Rosie's head was twice the size of those of the other ellies, but her
body wasn't, she was one who had become a zombie
"Was somebody saying
that they read that Kay died at 60? I was just looking in the 1993 route
book for C&B and it has her age as being 46, and she died the next year.
I think that they may have lied about the actual ages of the ellys in
these books, they also have Barbara and Suzie as being 46 and 45, when
in fact they were younger than Kay. The route books are sold to the
circus goers..I guess if the public knew they were using a 60 year old
elephant to push and pull semi trucks into place in the mud and to put
up the tent, some may object? That's like using your old grandmother to
push your car out of the mud!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is Zack(they called all their
zebras Zack, in fact, they reused names with most of the menagerie
animals) Poor Zack would do this desperate prance/pace thing, bouncing
back and forth on his front legs, for hours, wanting to run wild on the
savannah. His pen was also tiny. He froze so badly in the winter he had
icicles all over his body. He only like women, and few women at that. He
would let me in his pen, and I'd scratch his ears. He bit my shoe once,
fooling around, and it leaked after that.
"I used to visit Bunny
everyday when there was no one there in the evening, and feed her
oranges! She was the only elephant, I don't know for how long but you
could tell that she had begun to go a little crazy as some elephants do
after years of loneliness and beatings. I see from her pictures that her
sores look somewhat better, I am so glad for her. Now if we could just
get some other elephants I love rescued...."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mona and Reggie in a staged photo,
this wasn't a daily practice, or anything near it. This was taken just
weeks before her death.
"The elephants at
Carson and Barnes live on a steady diet of hay and sweet grain (sweet
feed). Elephants need whole, green vegetation, fruits and the larger
variety of foods that they would encounter foraging. Many of .C&B's
elephants are bloated, with pinched faces and thin legs, they have
terrible gas and they also had terrible body odor, partly from living in
their own filth. The elephants drink only as much as the handlers would
let them, before they got bored and I saw the elephants being forced
away from the water more than once. They aren't allowed to spray water
on their backs, nor do they ever get to lay in water, so they have very
thick, flaky dry skin that you could hear scratching as they would go
by. I watched a very sweet elly named Minnie stuffing mud into some
cracks in her skin one day, when it had rained so much that there water
standing in the tent. She was looking around as if afraid to be caught,
and the only reason she got a chance to do it in the first place was
because the muddy conditions made things chaos and her handler was
preoccupied. Sometimes the cracks would ooze blood, and there would be
flies in the sores, and the handlers would use the wounds as a spot to
inflict pain, making the wound worse. It's no wonder that many
performing elephants have numerous scars and warts, which grow up around
wounds that aren't being allowed to heal."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Trust me you
guys, Frisco is nothing special as far as how mean a trainer can be.
They are ALL just like him, it's hard to believe but I've seen
worse.
"
This photo is of an elephant
handler named Reggie L. (on the right), who was a very brutal,
abusive man, he was Altas handler, in the 90s. I've seen him hit
elephants with baseball bats for jingling their chains, I've seen
him take part in gang beatings in which several men surround an
elephant and beat it with bats and bullhooks for nearly an hour. And
yes, I've seen him hit camels with the hook, as well.
"Have you guys seen
the PETA films showing the slaughter of cattle and pigs and fowl?
They are also kept alive through much of the slaughter process, for
the same reasons as with the dogs, A. killing the animals wastes
time so it is just easier to let them remain alive and B. the terror
felt by the animal as it is hoisted in the air alive or scalded
alive imparts a better flavor to the meat. Also, hanging them up and
cutting their throats while the heart is still beating allows the
blood to be pumped out of the body, making the butchering process
more expeditious. Witnessing your fellow animals being treated this
way adds to the adrenaline flowing through the body, as well. In
some of the films I have seen of dog slaughter, the dog being killed
is beaten and tormented in front of the other dogs, who stand
trembling and crying, awaiting their turns. The whole thing is just
revolting, the dark cloud hanging over this planet is going to come
down on us, one of these days, if we don't find a way to stop it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...you
commented on the extra long bullhooks, there was a reason for
them....one of Okies favored methods of controlling an elephant, was to
sink the hook on the backbone or top of the head, then HANG from it,
literally with his feet off the ground, to try to unbalance the bull. I
saw Suzy get confused and disoriented one muddy day when she was clearly
exhausted from pulling trucks..Okie was hitting her and she began
pivoting on her hind legs in a circle, with Okie hanging off of her
head, his legs flying out as she turned, John John came and started
whacking her and they got her going in the right direction. I remember
the look on her face, it was just pure fatigue and confusion, I felt so
bad for her..its one of my most painful memories from that time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Dolly was a newly
acquired elephant at Carson and Barnes, in 1994. She was small,
dark, arthritic and had one eye that hung lower than the other. I
was told that she had had a tragic life, including nearly drowning
and more than one truck accident. It took her several minutes just
to get out of the truck and to step over the picket lines to be
chained. She was 'insane' and would swing blindly at whoever walked
by, and she would end up hitting the side of the trailer instead
with a big bang! Her assigned handler, an idiot named Danny Barnes,
was actually talking about making her a ride elephant!! My question
is, is anybody here familiar with the current lineup of elephants at
C&B, and would know any info on Dolly? She was an elephant in need
of being retired...badly"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is (left to right) Tony and
Christie, two young Africans I see getting into trouble later, like
Tyke....., Mona, then Dolly, who's face you can see hangs on the left
side, from a beating. I cant say if this is the same Dolly or not, I see
the one in the photo is small, like the Dolly at C&B. C&B only acquired
her because some other circus was selling out (I think) and they wanted
to have as many ellies as possible, for the spectacle.
That's 'John John' Frazier, one of the men involved in the Margaret
beating, and one of the meanest men I've ever met. This photo is from
the routebook the year I was there, 1994, a lot of time has gone by,
only God knows if Dolly could still be alive.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bunny and Kay, you can see Bunny's
huge bullhook boil in this photo.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Using their heads to push trucks
out of the mud, these trucks may be stuck to the tops of their
wheels. This is Barbara and Paul D.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This
is Barbara and Paul D. He was a veteran handler, and had been with C&B
for many years under Okie Carr. I saw him turn and clobber Opal over the
face with his hook, because he was mad at another employee. I was
'friends' with this guy, and got to hear all kinds of horror stories
from him.
Barbara was the third oldest girl, one of the 'big four' (Kay, Barbara,
Minnie and Suzy) She was labeled a runner, being one of the ellies that
escaped to the lake in Hugo (despite what the Hugo News reported). She
normally wore a special extra pair of chain bracelets, to make it easier
to secure her if she ran again. She very much had a mind of her own. Her
big, light brown eyes made her look youthful, though she was in her 50s,
in the 90s. She looks old here though, just look at her poor nails.
"Elephants are so
massive that even a light brush of their trunk, or as misplaced step
can be damaging or even fatal. Incidences of men being crushed
between elephants and trailer walls are common. I always kind of
felt like the elephants have found a way to kill handlers while
making it look like an accident. That may sound like
anthropomorphization but if you knew just how smart they really are
it wouldn't surprise you. An elephant can feel an insect land on
it's skin, so you know it can feel a man crushed into its side.
I don't think you are
a bad person for feeling that way. I used to secretly hope that Alta
would 'accidentally' kill her handler, an especially brutal man, and
get him out of her misery. It was often said that Kay had killed 13
handlers in her time, and I'm certain each and every one of them
completely deserved it. I don't think that animals have a concept of
things artificial and unnatural, I really think that they view us as
another animal, a cruel, confusing animal with intentions beyond
their comprehension. I doubt that animals such as the big cats and
the hoofed animals think about it much at all, they seem to accept
their fate, but I am convinced that elephants ponder many things
deeply, such as death, love and what the deal with humans is...can
you imagine being torn between knowing that you are going to spend
the rest of your life in chains, being tortured on a daily basis,
or, if you decide to break out, that you will ultimately just be
brought back-or gunned down? No wonder so many of the elephants at
Carson and Barnes were insane..you could see it in their eyes.
I remember watching
Suzy one day, she had her eyes closed and she was wringing her trunk
in tight knots and would occasionally thump the ground with it,
hard. To me, it looked as if she were just overwrought with
frustration and sadness...sometimes you would see one of them
standing there with tears pouring out of their eyes for no apparent
reason, in fact it was seeing Alta do this one day that really began
to disturb me about the whole thing, and made me start watching
their behavior more closely. The 'crazy' ones, like Kay and Dolly,
didn't seem to flinch any more when they were struck, they just
stood and rocked endlessly, and stared out at nothing. They were the
scary ones too, you got the feeling that they might squish you
without even thinking about it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
a
page from the C&B show program, the stock lies they've been telling for
many years
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this is Kay, only a few months before her death. That's some local prom
queen on her back
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
******
Please
write your congressmen
to stop the cruel abuse of circus
elephants and exotics.
Quick Senate Contact List
Quick House Member Contact List
Quick
Agriculture Committee Member List
Also, remind your
local news station
of the trial
against Hawthorn March 8th,2004,
where Cuneo lost his elephants due to his horrible treatment to them!
Hawthorn Corporation
(John Cuneo) leases animals to
Shrine Circuses, Walker Bros Circus, Jordan World Circus, Circus Vargas,
Royal Palace Circus, George Carden Circus, Hanneford Circus, Hamid
Circus, Alain Zerbini, and Tarzan Zerbini.
The first USDA recently
confiscated one of John Cuneo's elephants, Delhi, see what they say
about Hawthorn! The hearing is in March in Washington, DC:
Read the
USDA CHARGES!
THE BULLHOOK, ANKUS
**************************************************************************
THE ELEPHANT SANCTUARY GIFT SHOP -
Please support the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee save the abused
elephants!!!!!
http://www.elephants.com/merchandisestart.htm
CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!
**************************************************************************
ELEPHANT APPRECIATION DAY- SEPT 22nd!!!!!
******
'SOMEONE PLEASE!
CAN YOU HEAR ME?'
by Victoria Heuman - victoriaellenb@comcast.net
Violently ripped away from my mothers
true love.
I scream and cry for her -but deep I sense her heart is breaking.
Oh My God! what has happened?
Her comfort never comes ….I do not understand?
I’m placed inside shackles starved
and beaten.
Its been a nightmare endlessly for days.
This can’t be…Please! Why are you so cruel ? What have I done?
Voices of men rise all around me
while sharp hooks penetrate my tender skin.
what can I do for you? I would! But please! Help me to understand?
My mind manages to stay focused I
will try and leave if only I could.
I know you do not like me ????
Sick and alone my heart weighs so heavy.
Some times you leave me locked up
and alone which seems unbearable without a
care. Only to return seemingly unhappy with what I am …but why? I cannot
understand?
The memories of what was once is
now a dream it seems.
Oh no! could it be this terrible pain is the life doomed for me? Who am
I?
At times I seem to do what you want
but even then you strike again?
I continue to make that painful move in hopes you will except me.
I know most times by the tone of your voice I must disappoint you…
Believe me…I just do not understand?
A shower at the end of a long
rubber hose…. oh how I love and rejoice the cool of the
water! but even then with this one only joy your hands and glares always
move
in anger…. please tell me what have I done?
These crowds of people scream as I
move Are they angry with me too?
Why? Frightened …I plead… are you so angry with me?
….What did I possibly do?
Relief or comfort is never near …It
never seams to come.
I try to please…. Confused and bewildered.
I’m patient to learn but please show some care.
… I’m trying to know what you need?
I have learned my only love is no
longer near… her memory so far away.
Please! I ask for somebody to care… I know someone once did!
I guess I’m no good really not worthy …you have told me in so many ways
Please……I just don’t understand
….what I have or haven’t done?
I hear you...Victoria Heuman -
victoriaellenb@comcast.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Information
on the
THE
ELEPHANT SANCTUARY
Click here, we are not in anyway
affiliated with the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee,
but support
them with all our heart and soul!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please, Help the innocent
 CIRCUS
BABY
BIG NEWS!:
THE ELEPHANT SANCTUARY IN TENNESSEE IS THE PREFERRED PLACE
THAT
THE
USDA
WANTS TO SEND THE
RESCUED 16 ELEPHANTS FROM JOHN CUNEO'S, USDA
SHUT-DOWN, HAWTHORNE CIRCUS TRAINING BARN!
BUT, THE ELEPHANT SANCTUARY IN TENNESSEE NEEDS HELP
IN BUILDING THE BARNS AND HIRING
THE CARING ELE KEEPERS TO TAKE CARE
OF THEM!
PLEASE GO TO THE PAGE BELOW TO READ UP ON THE CASE
AND TO
SEE IF YOU CAN HELP, THANK YOU!!!!
http://www.elephants.com/hawthorn/hawthorn.php
Click here to...
MEET YOUR MEAT
Click on picture to view "Chew on This"
World Hunger?
 |
