Elephants Chang and Lulu, owned by Carson & Barnes Circus of Oklahoma, will likely be on the Shrine circus tour this year. The Zenobia Shrine circus will come through Toledo, OH, in March, and the elephants need your help.

Uneducated, I went to the circus March of 2019. My son and brother decided they wanted to ride the elephant. I stood to the side, taking a video of the ride. While standing there, I realized how distressed, depressed and miserable these poor creatures are. Chang and Lulu's eyes searched tirelessly inside their minds for peace, desperation inside their eyes as they made their rounds. At the end of the ride, my baby brother, full of compassion, reached up to pet the elephant, and her eyes immediately came back to life. She reached her trunk up to touch my brother, and also looked directly into my eyes. I was shocked by the force of her internal plea for help. She began to cry as she looked deep into my soul, begging for help - for comfort, for release, for freedom. I stood there crying for her until intermission was ending, and when I walked away, she waved her trunk goodbye to me, and then was guided back behind the stage. 

Research and undercover investigations have exposed not only the problems inherent with keeping animals for human entertainment, but also the heartbreaking and violent abuses they're exposed to behind the scenes that range from having food withheld to being beaten in training and blatantly mistreated.

While wild animals have been used in circuses for decades, we know so much more about what these animals need to be physically and psychologically healthy and that circuses can never meet these needs even with the best of intentions.

We must help! THE ZENOBIA SHRINE MUST STOP THE USE OF WILD AND EXOTIC ANIMALS! Shrine temples across the country are making the compassionate and right choice to stop the exploitation of elephants and other circus animals, and have found human-only circus entertainment just as lucractive. WE, THE SIGNATORES OF THIS PETITION, IMPLORE THE ZENOBIA SHRINE TO FIND OTHER METHODS OF FUNDRAISING THAT DO NOT HARM ANIMALS.