Circuses and Zoos Are No Fun for Animals!

How would you feel if you were snatched away from your family, beaten, chained or stuck in a dirty cage or boxcar so that you could never roam around freely or play, and forced to perform silly tricks just so that someone could make money? That would be awful, wouldn’t it? Well, that’s what life is like for elephants, tigers, bears, lions, horses, sea lions—yes, that’s right, sea lions, who are supposed to be in the sea—and other animals who are used in circuses and zoos. For them, life is no fun at all.

Animals in the circus aren’t there because they want to be, and they don’t perform because they enjoy it. Trainers use tight collars and muzzles to help control the animals and whips, electric prods, and bullhooks to force them to perform.

Animals in the circus are taken from their families and deprived of all the things that they would experience in their natural habitats. If you were able to watch these animals in the wild, you’d never find them riding bicycles, jumping through flaming hoops, standing on their heads, walking around on their hind legs, or balancing balls on their noses! You’d see them roaming around, foraging or hunting for food, and bonding with their family unit or herd.

Circus animals are dragged around the country in cramped, dirty boxcars for as many as 50 weeks a year—keep in mind that there are only 52 weeks in an entire year! When they’re not performing, the big cats, bears, and other animals actually live in these small barren boxcars or cages, and sometimes, they’re not able to get to food and water when they are thirsty or hungry. The elephants spend about 20 hours a day in chains and are usually only unchained long enough to perform for a noisy crowd. But in the wild, elephants walk between 30 and 50 miles a day, play in mud pits, swim in watering holes, and interact with their loved ones. Did you know that female elephants stay with their mothers for their entire lives? Males are a bit more independent, so they stick with Mom until they’re about 15 years old. But circuses take young elephants away from their families.

Zoos claim to be “educational,” but come on! The only thing that you can learn about animals by going to the zoo is what happens to them when they are taken from their families and homes in the wild, held hostage, and deprived of what comes naturally to them … they go crazy! If you’ve ever been to a zoo or roadside animal exhibit, you know what we’re talking about.

Animals in zoos become bored and stressed from confinement, and they develop a mental illness called “zoochosis”. Animals with zoochosis pace back and forth, sway from side to side, throw feces, bite the cage bars, repeatedly lick the bars and walls of the cages, and over-groom themselves, which can cause bald spots. 

Some people think that zoos work to save endangered species, but that is not the case. Zoos don’t rehabilitate the endangered animals who live there so that they can release them into the wild; they rehabilitate them so that they can keep them and put them on display. And zoos don’t breed endangered species to help increase their populations, either. Zoos know that everyone loves baby animals—I mean, really, who can resist them?!—and they breed animals so that they will have an endless supply of baby animals to put on display to draw crowds because to them, it’s all about making money. When they have too many animals or when animals no longer draw a crowd, zoos sometimes sell animals or even kill them. If zoos really cared about animals, they would rescue and care for exotic animals who cannot be released into the wild, but they would never sell or breed them.

You can help animals by avoiding circuses with animal performers and zoos. Check out circuses that have only human performers, like Cirque de Soleil, because all their performers want to be there!