Strange and Harrowing ordeal of the baby elephants bound and beaten to become circus stars

Pulled to the ground by a web of ropes, a baby elephant learns the hard way how to become a circus performer.

In case the youngster doesn't want to co-operate, a trainer stands by with one of the sharp metal hooks used to manage the animals.

The disturbing picture is one of a series taken by a former trainer which campaigners say reveal the brutal reality of how elephants are prepared for circus work.

The pictures show them being dragged to the ground by ropes, chained side by side, pinned down by a hook in the back of the neck and checked by cattleprods.

Peta - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - say the elephants are also separated from their mothers by force.

The photographs are being used to spearhead a campaign to tighten up laws on the use of wild beasts in circuses.

The Government here is considering legislation to impose stricter conditions on their care, training and performance, particularly where young are concerned.

The pictures were taken in the U.S. by handler Sammy Haddock, who worked for the Ringling Bros' Barnum and Bailey Circus until 2005.

They were taken more than seven years ago - but Peta says such methods are widespread, and 'effectively amount to the torture of defenceless animals'.

Haddock died last month and asked Peta to use his pictures to ease his conscience about the kind of treatment he administered during eight years at the Ringling centre in Florida.

Peta director Poorva Joshipura said: 'All the evidence suggests that the methods described by Sam Haddock are standard operating procedures.'

Ringling's dismisses Peta's claims as 'from the last century' and denies cruelty. It says it separates calves from adults only when they are old enough to demonstrate natural independence.

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Sreange Animal Stunts Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before!

A famous stuntman uses his hands to balance nimbly on the tusks of an elephant. A lion perches less steadily on the back of a moving horse. A pair of bears rides in similar bareback style, while another of their species gets in the ring with a wrestler. Put the words stunt and animal together and you’re already on contentious ground. Yet whether such practices can be considered cruel or not depends on when, where and how the stunts were executed. And what point of view you take.

Take all-action Thai movie star Tony Jaa. Could the finest stuntman of his generation and martial arts master stand accused of cruelty towards the elephant whose tusks act as the equivalent of a gymnast’s parallel bars?

In a tuskle: Tony Jaa in a stunt with an elephant from the film Tom-Yum-Goong
As a child, Jaa gave baths to his family’s elephants and flipped off their backs into the river, while his style of Muay Thai has moves that imitate the colossal creatures. He later got his stunt doubling break in a commercial that required him to grip an elephant’s tusks and somersault onto its back. If anyone was going to do it, the elephant would probably have picked Tony.

Bearing all: Exhibition bear wrestling match in Ohio
It’s debatable whether the 650-pound ursus in this next image of bear wrestling – still performed in movies and exhibition bouts today – would be voluntarily so compliant with human whims. Although human wrestlers and bear owners claim the animals are not hurt – and even say they are having fun – there is outcry among animal rights groups keen to ban the sport across the US on grounds that it is not only barbaric but absurd, and should be confined to the dustbin of history.

Old skool chokehold: Wrestling bear stunt in an old publicity shot
It’s a question of when working with animals becomes working against animals – but it’s a thorny one. Elephants have long been taught to do our bidding, and being intelligent enough to be trained for a variety of acts, they’ve traditionally been a major attraction in circuses around the world.

Elephant power: Modern circus trick with two women being held aloft
However, increasingly there is grass roots resistance to any kind of capture, confinement and use of wild elephants, which are thus subjected to highly unnatural conditions – and sometimes show their distress by turning on their keepers or handlers.

Four legs good, two legs bad: Bassie and Adrian, a popular duo on old Dutch TV
Animals do admittedly appear a lot less often in contemporary circuses than they used to, but traditional circus companies still exist, with the animals historically used in acts such as big cats, elephants, horses and bears performing some of the same tricks they have done for decades if not centuries.

Circus tradition: Leopard training in 1906 and Roman standing act circa 1914

The use of animals in the circus has been controversial for some time, particularly as animal welfare groups have documented many cases of explicit animal cruelty, with training methods nowadays alleged to include beatings and other forms of physical abuse just as they always have.

Strange couple: Lion on a horse’s back in a show held in a Chinese zoo
Notwithstanding the use of such inhumane instruments as electric shock prods and hooks behind closed doors, in China what many might see as cruel animal stunts are positively on parade. In one of the country’s more notorious zoo, spectators have been treated to a bizarre display as a 420-pound lion leaps onto and rides around the ring on a horse’s back, kept moving by the steady crack of the trainer’s whip. The horse at least must surely be terrified.

Biting the dust: A stunt man gets dragged in a scene from the indie film Atanasia
Yet again, though, there are controversial practices on show closer to home. In America, a cultural tradition as deep-rooted as the rodeo is under fire from animal rights groups. Stock events like bull and bronco riding and steer wrestling may look innocuous to many – more likely to cause harm to man than beast – but critics maintain rodeos are cruel to the animals involved.

Yee-haw: Steer wrestling rodeo events in full swing

Such flak is nothing new for rodeos – though conditions have improved, with vets now present at all rodeos and competitors in general said to provide decent care to the animals they work with. Even so, there is concern among some animal welfare organisations about the use of metal or electric cattle prods and tail-twisting, while others simply oppose all rodeos and rodeo events full stop.

Catching air: Bucking bronco at the Georgia National Rodeo, one of the biggest
Again, it’s a tricky area, not simplified by popular misconceptions such as the idea that bucking broncos are wild, terrified animal – when in actual fact they aren’t feral but have learned to buck off their riders. The question may be a deeper, philosophical one. Is coercing animals into performing activities for our entertainment inherently cruel? But if it were to be stopped, where would the line be drawn?

Tags: Notorious Zoo, Circus, Roots, Wrestlers, Wrestling, movie star, The Ring

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Awesome Tragic end for the zoo deer who leapt into a lion enclosure

This is the moment a baby deer makes a real error of judgement and jumps into a zoo enclosure containing a pair of hungry lions.

Desperate visitors watched in horror as the young whitetail deer literally leapt into the lions' den at the National Zoo in Washington, U.S.

The crowd urged the tiny fawn to run as a lioness chased after the creature and trapped it beneath one of its paws.


But the plucky deer managed to shake off its pursuers, race away before leaping into a moat which surrounded the lion enclosure.

Cheering spectators then watched as keepers managed to the two lionesses back into their pens while they rescued the deer from the water.

Witness Rob Ephraim said the deer ran between people at the railing of the low wall and jumped into the sunken enclosure with the lions.

He said: 'It was running and it leaped, it must have had a death wish.'

Tragically the animal suffered serious wounds to its stomach and had to be put down.

The National Zoo is part of Rock Creek Park, home to many deer and other wild or 'feral' animals including raccoons and chipmunks.


Zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Massan said it was the first time a deer had managed to get inside one of the carnivore's enclosures.

She said that the fawn had suffered serious injuries that it would not have been able to recover from.

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Very Funny Images Of Open Mouth Of Animals

Funny images of open mouth of animals

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