Stop allowing animal circuses in Benton County, Oregon!

These animals don't belong in the circus.

Stop this!

These intelligent, emotional beings do not deserve this kind of treatment. These elephants are ripped from their homes and families as babies, their spirits intentionally broken with torturous methods performed by their captors, and are forced to live a life of emotional pain and physical abuse. These practices have already been given up by other circuses, and will someday be as widely accepted as any other outdated cruel practice. Just as much (or more) money can made using shows that only employee consenting humans. Please make the right choice. The best choice. The kind choice.

Let's be entertained by the amazing physical feats that HUMANS can do! Animals deserve to live free in the wild, not in cages.

do not let animal circuses in Benton county. It is just not right

Not ok in our county. .or anywhere for that matter!

There are many talented humans that can are paid and choose to be in a performance. Large animals do not have a voice or a opinion. Nor a choice! It's time to stop.

Props to the organizer(s) for showing the world that folks don't need to harm animals for "entertainment".

Stop abusing animals!

Let's not allow animal circuses in Benton County, please! We are past this and should know better.

Let's work to change the long and twisted history in which humans exploit other animals for entertainment.

Peace to everyone and every animal.

It's 2016 - this nonsense has to stop!

There is no excuse for animal abuse

1. Animals spend 96 percent of their lives behind bars. The average circus travels for 48 weeks of the year, and during this time, the animals are all confined to tiny cages, only just big enough to stand and turn around in. Statistics show that the average time that the animals are caged for is in excess of 26 hours, and in some cases it was as long as 75 or 100 hours. In the wild, an elephant can walk up to 30 miles each day, highlighting the immense disparity between their cruel circus lifestyle and their natural one. 2. Babies are torn away from their mothers shortly after birth. Elephants, lions, tigers, and chimpanzees are all very social animals by nature, yet in the circus, these animals are taken away from their mothers at a very young age and brought up in a solitary environment where they cannot exhibit many of their natural behaviors. It is very common for these animals to develop stress related illnesses, depression, anxiety, and extreme frustration when they are deprived of companionship. 3. Physical punishment is the standard method of training. The training of circus animals is a dark and disturbing world which is hidden from the public eye. However, many investigators have been able to film secret footage of the horrific ways in which trainers force their animals to learn the tricks they perform on stage. Bull hooks, whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, and other barbaric tools are used to physically punish the animals until they learn to get it right. Bleeding, bruising, and even broken bones have been witnessed by investigators. 4. Partial starvation and dehydration is commonplace. As well as using direct physical contact to make the animals learn tricks, they are often forced to go without food and water for prolonged periods when they haven’t performed well during training sessions, as well as during travel periods. According to the ASPCA, the deprivation of these basic necessities combined with the long term physical mist

Most comments illustrate an alarming discrimination and lack of knowledge about both humans and animals. Elephants are smart, and like human beings, each has a personality. Some are natural born entertainers. We have the responsibility to allow, to advocate, for every animal and human to the extent we are able. When elephants want to be artists, performers, presenters on stage, would you deny this opportunity for them to be well fed and self fulfilled? Ask any artist how hard they work and often struggle to make a living. The inherent challenges and difficulties that come with being a performer. Love for the work you do is what carries many through life. Elephants and people are not that much different. Some elephants might choose to be wild, and roam the streets of Corvallis, and I'm sure you all would find a way to fund the vast quantities of food they eat, and scoop up the gigantic piles of manure. Corvallis could become the Elephant sanctuary of the left coast. Tourists will flock to see your free ranging elephants. Shops with t-shirts and restaurants with grass fed elephant steaks could blossom with all the tourists.

These displays of animals who have been enslaved, tortured, abused and neglected are not entertaining, they're shameful.

This is animal abuse....it is criminal.

I'm

free the animals . and go entertain yourself other ways