Hell no, we won’t go!

The city of Corner Brook, a city located on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, seems to be one of the next stops for the Cirque Estival. And their track record of animal abuse has already arrived.

A Facebook group to boycott the Corner Brook Circus on June 19 has been formed to persuade the city that Corner Brook is not the place for animal circuses.

While the sight of these magnificent animals and the pagentry that goes into every act is incredible, what is the cost to these animals just for our entertainment?

In a recent interview, Louis Leonard, Director of Cirque Estival, said that during the nearly 3-month 70-show tour, Limba the elephant (who was snared as a baby and enslaved for the past 40+ years) performs for about 7 minutes of each show.

The majority of elephants used in circuses are captured in the wild as babies. In 2000, poachers killed 60 free-roaming female elephants so that their babies could be collected and sold to the entertainment industry. The still-nursing elephants, all under the age of 3, refused to abandon their dead mothers, even attempting to suckle from their corpses.

Baby elephants born in breeding farms are torn from their mothers, tied with ropes, and kept in isolation until they learn to fear their trainers.

One study of traveling circuses observed an elephant who spent up to 96 percent of her time in chains. The circus deprives animals of their basic needs to exercise, roam, socialize, forage, and play.

Repetitive and often destructive behaviors such as obsessive swaying, bobbing, chewing, sucking, weaving, rocking, and licking are common in circus animals, and are manifestations of their extreme stress and boredom.

Abusive training techniques, lack of socialization and other stimuli, and constant confinement often causes animals to become so stressed that they become dangerous, lashing out at trainers and spectators. Deaths and injuries from such incidents are not uncommon.

In the wild, elephants don’t balance themselves on three legs atop a stool while twirling hula-hoops around their trunks and legs.

That’s for our entertainment.

Surely you do not support this abusive treatment of animals. Surely this is not what you want your children to learn. And surely this is not worth spending your money on to support.

Neville Greeley, the Mayor of Corner Brook is a modern man,  he is on Facebook.  He understands social media and how powerful a voice it is. Please send him a Facebook message and kindly ask him, in a polite way, to do the right thing and cancel Cirque Estival in Corner Brook due to overwhelming public demand.