Making wild exotic animals perform demeaning tricks is a cruel form of entertainment that should have been stopped a long time ago!! A circus WAS once considered family entertainment. Now we know it's nothing more than animal enslavement and abuse. Here is just one example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECspj0daAlE&feature=player_embedded
Circus animals are transported hundreds of miles with no water in unheated trucks or box cars in the winter and with no air conditioning in the summer. They live in appallingly cramped cages or are chained to the ground with minimal movement allowed. They cannot exhibit natural behavior and are subject to brutal treatment and abuse. Training for the animals is based on fear, intimidation and pain. It is not uncommon for elephants to be tied down and beaten for days at a time with clubs, shocked with electric prods, stabbed with sharp hooks and whipped. Baby elephants are taken from their mothers only to be tied down and beaten until their spirits are broken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azTrkRxHKs0.  Never even given the chance to be loved and nurtured by their mothers. Exotic cats and bears are whipped, choked and beaten, their noses broken and paws burned with cigarette lighters to get them to balance on their hind legs, jump through fiery hoops and perform other unnatural acts. Here is a you tube video showing and explaining what really goes on for your entertainment: https://youtu.be/6Y6WKI8eKI4
Bolivia, Peru, Greece, Cyprus, Paraguay, Columbia, the Netherlands and Slovenia have banned the use of wild animals in circuses. Some have banned domestic animals also! When are the U.S., Canada and other countries going to step up and protect these animals? Here is a list of worldwide circus bans. http://www.stopcircussuffering.com/circus-bans/ . And it continues to expand!!..... LET US BE NEXT ON THE LIST!!!
WE are the ones who must push for change on how animals are treated and viewed! WE must be their voice! NO entertainment is worth such cruelty!
Please sign and share this petition to show your support against animal abuse and to end the use of exotic animals in circuses.
We, the undersigned, urge Mayor Dilkens and the City of Windsor council members, to ban animal circuses and traveling animal acts in our community. Wild animals belong in the wild!!