(NOTE TO EDITOR: THE TWO LOCAL PERFORMANCES OF RINGLING BROTHERS AND BARNUM & BAILEY WILL BE: MACON, GA. JAN. 7-9; AND COLUMBUS, GA. JAN. 13-16. THEY WILL ALSO BE PERFORMING IN ATLANTA, AUGUSTA, AND OTHER CITIES.)

The circus is coming to town … Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey will be touring throughout Georgia during January. Please don’t be fooled by their cheerful advertisements. Circuses like this one represent misery and agony untold for the elephants and other animals forced to perform in them.

Bears, elephants, tigers, and other animals do not voluntarily ride bicycles, stand on their heads, balance on balls, or jump through rings of fire. They don’t perform these and other difficult tricks because they want to; they perform them because they’re afraid of what will happen if they don’t. Trainers use whips, choke collars, muzzles, electric prods, bullhooks, and other painful tools of the trade. Circus elephants especially are beaten, hit, and jabbed with sharp hooks, often until bloody. Baby elephants are ripped from their mothers at a very young age so that they can be “broken” while they are still very small. The “training” — which forces them to perform confusing tricks under constant threat of physical punishment — begins when they are just infants.

There are animal-free circuses such as Cirque du Soleil, the New Pickle Family Circus and others which dazzle and entertain audiences without animal acts. But circuses such as Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey deprive their performing animals of the  fulfillment of every natural instinct in exchange for a few cheap tricks.

Cruelty is not entertainment. Please boycott the circus as it drags its captive performing animals throughout our state.

Ashley Patel

Cataula, Ga.

10995 Ga. Hwy. 315 W.

P.O. Box 577

Cataula, GA 31804

706-577-7947