How Live Robotic Elephants
Were Created

When we attend circuses, we can’t help but admire, even love, the beautiful animals we think are acting naturally. They’re not. The calm and docile animals in their cages, or dancing on tiptoe, were not born in the wild to take orders from humans. Circus animals are trained using abusive tactics to transform them into docile animals. Elephants are brutally broken in different ways to perform for the circuses. Sadly, knowing how they are “trained” ruins the fun of watching them perform. Even worse, we have to admit that our attendance at the performance is the cause of their suffering.

To most training is thought of in a positive light. For instance, when you train a dog you positively reinforce them to go to the bathroom outside. Dog trainers like Amy Jorgensen stand behind the idea of positive reinforcement. In “Positive Reinforcement and Negative Reinforcement in Dog Training,” Jorgensen explains that “trainers who use positive reinforcement, use rewards to encourage the dog to repeat a specific behavior. Rewards can be treats, affection or a toy. As soon as the dog does the desired behavior, the reward needs to be given.” The dog trainers praise the dog with love and affection when they do something correctly.

Although circus trainers pride themselves on using what they call positive reinforcement with the animals. It is in fact the opposite of the positive reinforcement method. In answer to frequently asked questions, the Ringling Bros. Circus claimed that their animals were “reinforced through a system of reward and repetition.” With elephants and other circus animals the training has to be extremely negative all the time because of their wild nature. Trainers need more than a treat and repetition to get wild animals, such as elephants, to stand on their hind legs and dance for an audience. We are beginning to dig deeper into these training practices and beginning to question what circus owners really believe is appropriate training.

In order to hold a successful circus the trainers must inflict p an extensive amount of pain and suffering onto the animals to keep the circuses successful. If elephants have to go through all that pain to be considered “trained” for the shows they are not being trained they are being tortured. They are taken away from their homeland, ripped from their mothers, isolated, and physically injured. This torture does not benefit the animal or make the animal a better elephant in any way shape or form, in fact injures the elephants. This “training” is a form of torture to get the animals to perform the way the circus or zoos want them to perform. Howard Chua-Eoan comments on the training in his article The Elephants Take A Bow, “What more and more people saw as the years went by– was the use of bullhooks. To keep the elephants marching in single file up to the park, trainers whacked them with the ugly metal talons.” Training—or torturing—the animals in this way takes away from what makes them beautiful and what we admire so much: their habitat, compassion, wildness, and freedom.

When they could no longer hide or justify abusing their elephants, Ringling Brothers eliminated all elephant acts from their circuses. The owner of the Ringling Bros., Kenneth Feld, announced that elephants would be eliminated from all circus shows by 2018. Ringling Bros. removing the acts is a way of them acknowledging the wrong they have done to these innocent animals. Charisse Jones reported for USA Today that when Feld was asked about the removal, he said, “When we did so, we knew we would play a critical role in saving the endangered Asian elephants for future generations, given how few Asian elephants are left in the wild. …This decision was not easy, but it is in the best interest of our company, our elephants and our customers.” From his statement above, Kenneth Feld shows remorse for the shrinking elephant population. His comment hints that the elephants from the show die from being “trained,” contributing the the endangered elephants.

It is almost impossible to get Ringling Bros. or their employees to expose the horrors that go on behind the scenes, because if they do they will be loosing out on huge profits that the injured elephants bring in. Thus, Ringling Bros. will always defend themselves and deny any allegations.But if their training process is humane and instructive, they could profit from opening the sessions to a paying audience.

Like many animal centers, the Ringling Bros. Greatest Show on Earth, claim that they treat elephants and all animals in the circus in a humane and loving way. On the Ringling Bros. website they explain the care of the animals as, “the animal care professionals at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® believe that a positive, healthy environment is the only acceptable and successful method of working with animals.” They claim the only way to get the animals to perform successfully is to allow them time spent with their mother and reward them with positive phrases as they train. “Trainers teach animals routines that showcase their physical abilities and beauty, as well as their distinctive behaviors. Our training methods are based on reinforcement in the form of food rewards and words of praise,” they claim. They are very clear when they explain that each of the animals in the circus are thoroughly cared for and not abused in any way. When the circus trainers teach they young calves the routines they are, again according to Ringling Bros., “tailored to each animal’s natural abilities and individual preferences which we observe during their playtime.” Basically, Ringling Bros. is claiming that each of the elephants routines are only enforcing their acts that they would normally perform in the wild as well.

If elephants are treated like family and only trained through humane tactics why do they not allow fans to watch the training process? This would surely be much more entertaining for viewers than watching elephants stand on one leg. There has to be something circuses are hiding from the public. Ringling Bros. makes a strong case that positive phrases and treats may successfully train some animals like dogs, or cats. Elephants on the other hand are wild animals that are meant to roam up to thirty miles a day and be close with their family of elephants. Some elephants that perform in the circus can weigh up to 7,000 pounds and usually tower over any trainer trying to dominate the animal. When circus handlers attempt to train animals of that immense size solely positive phrases and treats simply just do not cut it. Elephant trainers are constantly being accused of abusing the elephants by bounding their legs with chains and using bullhooks to get the elephants to cooperate. This makes more sense because to get the elephant to follow the routine they must be abused because of their immense size and nature. A website called Humane Review describes the worst case scenario.

The wild animals fare the worst, and elephants top the list in the inherent cruelty that circus animals experience, simply because their size makes transport and housing so confining and unnatural for them. Their training protocols are geared to ensure that the public will never see the underlying abuse, and therefore circus owners remain assured of their wide profit margin after each city stopover.

It is inevitable for circuses to train elephants in harsh ways due to their size, this is the reason that elephants need to be kept out of shows.

Thankfully a former Ringling Bros. employee, Archele Hundley, sees the harm that is being done and speaks out after viewing years of circus trainers mistreating the animals. Hundley teamed up with PETA to make a change when he could not take hearing the agonizing screams from the elephants as they were beaten bloody with bullhooks on a daily basis. He explains to PETA, “I saw handlers deliver a beating … for 30 minutes. She was covered with bloody wounds. I’ll never forget her agonizing screams . . . . Please, never take your children to a Ringling Bros. circus”

Knowing an employee quit his job and felt the need to speak out to put an end to the circus shows just how powerful and cruel these beatings are. These beatings are not just once in a while, or when the animal acts out. The beatings are administered daily from a range of people, “The abuse was not just once in a while—it occurred every day,” says Hundley. “The elephants, horses, and camels were hit, punched, beaten, and whipped by everyone from the head of animal care down to inexperienced animal handlers hired out of homeless shelters.”  These animals do not have a voice and can not stand up for themselves, this is why we must be their voice.

What circus owners do not tell the public is how each individual elephant is “broken” in order to learn each routine. Trainers “positively” use abusive tactics in order to break the elephant. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal activist group, explains this process as, “All four of their legs are tied together so that all they can do for up to 23 hours a day for up to six months is stand on a concrete floor . . . . This is emotionally and physically devastating to a young elephant.” By tying the elephant’s legs together it is preventing the elephant’s natural desire to walk and roam. This is the opposite of the Ringling Bros.’ claim which states that their acts only enforce the elephants natural acts. Also, Ringling Bros. claims that elephants stay with their mothers for the first two years of their life to adjust to the world. AT Humane Review, animal rights activists prove that claim wrong when they expose the heart wrenching process that goes into the birth of a elephant calf. They describe “the very young babies taken from their mothers early so that they can learn the fear of humans and the pain that human handlers can inflict at a very early age, while our species is still able to dominate them.” This is the only way that the circus trainers can implement dominance over the young elephants, and maintain it throughout their lives.

As we begin to realize the cruelty that is placed among these innocent animals we wonder what caused the circus to be this way. There are many obvious causes that explain why elephants are considered a main attraction in circuses, and continue to be to this day. These causes then relay the effects of elephants being beaten brutally in order to remain on top of the circus hierarchy.

For starters, as children we can not wait to go see the elephants because they are beautiful gigantic creatures that naturally entice the us to come see them in the shows. The high demand of the public to see elephants forces the trainers to continuously beat the elephants in order to continue the demand. An advocate for getting elephants out of circuses Matthew Wittmann says, “they’ve been fighting this fight for so long, and for over a century the icon of the American circus was the elephant.” Us going to the circuses and paying the money that we do affects the elephants’ well being because they are being continuously beaten. If we did not have such a high demand to see elephants perform, there would be no need to abuse them.

If we knew the immense cruelty that goes into breaking an elephant, most of us would be shamed away from circuses all together. Today, we are starting to realize the cruelty that is placed upon these beautiful animals and that effects the circus industry. PETA President Ingrid Newkirk commented on the removal of elephants: “These are complex, intelligent animals, and this is a lousy, lousy, dirty, cruel business, and people see that.” The circus and their harmful training tactics ended up hurting themselves because now their main attraction will be gone in just a few short years.

Elephant cruelty has been hidden from the public for as long as circuses have been around. The abuse is inhumane and no animal should be taken out of the wild and beaten to perform for a profit. Now is the time to out the circuses for their wrong doings and for the public to realize what their attendance to these shows is doing to the animals. By Ringling Bros. decision to yank elephants from all circuses by 2018, it shows they are attempting to avoid outrage from the people and possible criminal proceedings. We hope that in the future circuses, without elephants, we are invited to see the real entertainment showcasing the natural beauty of these amazing animals.

Works Cited

Jorgenson, Amy. “Positive Reinforcement & Negative Reinforcement for Dog Training.” Dog Care. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

Chua-Eoan, Howard. “The Elephants Take A Bow.” Bloomberg Businessweek 1 Mar. 2015. Print.

Jones, Charisse. “Ringling Bros. Eliminating Elephant Acts.” USA Today. Gannett, 5 Mar. 2015. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

“Animal Care FAQ.” Animal Care FAQ. N.p., 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

PETA. “Former Ringling Bros. Employee Speaks Out Against Abuse.” PETA. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

“The Circus — A Nightmare for Elephants.” The Circus – A Nightmare For Animals (2012): 1-4. Humane Review. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

Pèrez-peña, Richard. “Elephants to Retire From Ringling Brothers Stage.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2015. Web. 6 Apr. 2015.