1. Ringling Bros. – Elephant Child Abusers — Breaking a Baby Elephant

Background: This video is broken down into the different steps it takes to captivate an elephant and turn it into a domestic animal for the pure benefit of the entertainment business. The first step includes acquiring a baby elephant, which is done by importing asian elephants by binding their legs together. Now that the Endangered Species Act has been passed, Ringling Bros has its own farm to breed elephants in Florida. The second step is to take the babies from the mothers immediately after birth. They “break” elephants because they are wild and need to be tamed for the circus. The third step is to tie up all four legs of the baby elephant and keep it isolated for 23 hours a day. Step four is teaching the elephant circus tricks using ropes, bull hooks, and electronic prods.

How I Plan On Using It: This was an important aspect of my paper. I wrote about how the elephants are taken from their mothers’, bound, and broken. This article gives a dramatic affect to my paper and evokes reader’s emotions.

2. 6 Ways To Help Elephants

Background: This source provides six easy ways humans can protect and save elephants from extinction. They include avoiding circuses and zoos, being aware of where our coffee is from because some plantations destroy elephant’s habitat.

Use It: My paper ended up focusing solely on the abuse of elephants, although knowing ways to help is an important aspect to the survival of elephants

3. Get Elephants Out of Zoos

Background: Elephants’ living conditions in zoos are much more condensed than in the wild. Living standards for an elephant, such as 20 feet by 20 feet of space per animal, are pitiful. This eliminates the elephant’s nature to roam and walk freely as it does in the wild. It also exposes the forceful way zoos breed elephants, mostly through artificial insemination, knowing that most pregnancies will end in miscarriages or dead baby elephants. Overall, it exposes all the hideous truths about keeping an elephant at a zoo.

Use It: It was not used in my final paper because I had more than enough information to write solely on circuses. Although, this article shed light on the horrible living conditions for elephants, which I touched upon in my paper.

4. Cruelest Show on Earth

Background: The article revolves around a three-year-old elephant named Kenny Who became very sick during a show on tour. Sickly elephants require prompt medical care to insure their best performance. Ringling Bros ignored a reasonable suggestion by the veterinarian that Kenny skip one show, and forced Kenny to perform even though he was deathly sick and incredibly weak. That night Kenny died shackled in his suffocatingly small pen.

Use It: Although this was not a source used in my final paper it did show the carelessness of the elephant trainers and circus workers.

5. Ringling Bros. Eliminating Elephant Acts

Background: Ringling Bros. are phasing out elephants from their acts by 2018. The elephants that are in their shows will be sent to the Center for Elephant Conservation after they are eliminated from the acts.

Use It: I used this source in my final paper to show the elephants finally getting the treatment they deserve. I used the source to point out the slight remorse that Ringling Bros. has for the dwindling elephant population.

6. Poachers Target African Elephant for Ivory Tusks

Background: This article goes into depth about the rising crisis of ivory smuggling in the past few years. Several tons of ivory tusks are being smuggled and sold; poachers do this to make a profit because ivory is rare and pricey. It also discusses that the poachers are killing elephants at “massacre sites” and taking only their tusks, no meat from the elephant.

Use It: When researching and forming my paper I began to realize that I had more than enough information on elephant abuse within the circuses. Although I did not write about their tusks being stolen, it did open my eyes to the other tortures in the world that elephants are facing.

7. Elephant Abuse

Background: It talks about how in most zoos throughout the country elephants are chained up in a confined area and beaten. They explain the reason most zoos beat the elephants is to “keep the elephants in check” and to show that the elephant handler is dominant over the huge animal. This source offers a different perspective because it explains how the Oakland Zoo uses positive reinforcement like treats to train their elephants without abuse, and they also give the animals plenty of space to roam.

Use It: This goes along with my argument made in my paper that training elephants is more like torturing them. Although I did not directly source the cite in my paper it was a good source of reference, and gave me incite on elephant abuse outside the circus.

8. The Death of Stony the Elephant

Background: Stony was a circus elephant who was practicing standing on his two hind legs when his hamstring exploded. Stony was then brought to quarters where he was kept laying in his own waste unable to move a whole lot. He then died before they could send him off to an elephant breeding facility

Use It: I did not cite this source directly but in my paper I did mention the fact that elephants are so brutally beaten that they are dying without the proper care.

9. Ringling Bros. Eliminating Elephant Acts

Background: It is an end of an era for Ringling Bros. circus as they have decided to phase out all elephant acts from circuses by 2018. They elephants in the shows will then go to their preserve in Florida for a healthy long life.

Use It: I used this in my paper to show the Ringling Bros. finally making a change to the cruel lives of elephants. I used it to show the possible remorse that the circus feels for damaging the elephant population so immensely.

10. Positive Reinforcement in Dog Training

Background: This source discusses the different techniques used to train dogs. Including positive reinforcement which is giving a dog a treat after he or she has done something the trainer desires.

Use It: I used this article in my final paper to point out the different views of positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement may work for training pets such as dogs, but elephants are gigantic naturally wild animals who need more than a treat to be trained to stand on their hind legs.

11. The Circus a Nightmare for Elephants

Background: The article discusses all the horrible techniques circus trainers use in order to “break” the baby elephants and prepare them for the show. Including them being ripped from their mothers so they know to answer to the trainers.

Use It: I used this to reveal the brutality of the circus to the readers. This training and these techniques are being hidden from the public and this article does a great job of showing what really happens behind the scenes.

12. Ringmaster Defends Elephant Care

Background: This article is the opposite of my other sources and claims that the animals are well cared for and not abused in any way.

Use It: I used this perspective as a form of rebuttal in my final paper, it shows the other side and then shows how the other side’s evidence is faulty.

13. Elephants Retire From Ringling Bros. Stage

Background: This source says that after almost a century of abuse elephants will finally be retired from the circus. It also says that they are beautiful animals and the public is starting to realize their mistreatment.

Use It: I used this source to show the effects of touring animals so brutally. The effect is the removal of elephants from all shows and the loss of money for the Ringling Bros corporation.

14. Former Ringling Bros. Employee Speaks Out Against Abuse

Background: A former Ringling Bros. employee Archele Hundley speaks out against the horrors that he witnessed while working for the circus. The animals were beaten with bullhooks until they were crying and dripping blood.

Use It: I used this source as a reaction to the rebuttal source. It has a huge impact on the paper because this person was an eyewitness to the torture in the circus. The quotes in the article draw serious attention to the reality of the circus, and the harm that these trainers do to the animals.