The advertisements promise safe, family fun, colorful costumes, and exotic animals performing tricks at the snap of their trainers fingers big cats jumping through burning hoops, elephants balancing on their hind legs, and bears riding bicycles. The Humane Society of the United States has monitored circuses for 20 years, chronicling training methods and living conditions the animals routinely experience. We have kept track of incidents and anecdotes that explode many of the myths circuses want you to believe myths that help them perpetuate the big lie behind the big top.
Trainers sometimes strike elephants with sharpened hooks, which can result in physical injury.
Trainers resort to brutal methods to maintain a position of dominance. Wild animals will always behave in instinctive and unpredictable ways and can never be made willing or safely manageable through training. The animals move from circus to circus, following seasonal contracts. Many circuses don t bother to provide regular, competent veterinary care. Animals who aren t obedient or who have grown too old to perform may be sold or given to zoos, roadside attractions, research laboratories, or private individuals options unlikely to improve their quality of life.