Apple Blossom Mall Owner Ensures That Circus With History of Animal Abuse Will Feature Only Willing Human Performers
For Immediate Release:
April 24, 2012
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Winchester, Va. -- After learning from PETA about the cruelty and public endangerment inherent in forcing elephants, tigers, and other wild animals to perform, Apple Blossom Mall owner Simon Property Group, Inc.—the largest real estate investment trust in the U.S.—barred wild-animal exhibitions on all its properties. That means that the notoriously abusive Cole Bros. Circus will feature no animals during its performances at this year's Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival (April 27 to May 6).
"Thanks to Simon Property Group, there's no opportunity to abuse animals in the ring or endanger the public at this year's Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival," says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Delcianna Winders. "Animals who are abused by circuses become ticking time bombs, and many have turned on their cruel trainers and even endangered the lives of families attending these performances."
Following complaints lodged by PETA, Cole Bros. has paid $15,000 to settle U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) charges against the circus for, among other violations, failing to provide adequate veterinary care to two underweight elephants, Tina and Jewel, including one with a protruding spine. The charges also included failure to handle an elephant in a way that minimizes the risk of harm to the public and the elephant and failure to hire personnel capable of caring for them. In 2009, the USDA confiscated Jewell and also removed Tina.
Handlers with Cole Bros. continued to abuse other elephants even after the USDA filed charges against the circus. PETA sent the USDA alarming video footage taken at the Cole Bros. Circus in Lanesboro, Mass., in June 2011 that shows a handler who repeatedly struck an elephant using a bullhook (a rod with a solid, steel-pointed end that resembles a fireplace poker), including forcefully hitting the animal twice in the face. That same month, the USDA cited an elephant exhibitor with Cole Bros. for multiple violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including the use of "excessive force while tugging at" an elephant by digging a bullhook into her flesh.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.